Bloomberg reports that “an analysis of government data disputes a finding by safety regulators and promoted by Tesla Inc. that crash rates of its older vehicles declined after they were equipped with an automatic steering capability.” According to Bloomberg News, the study released by Maryland-based Quality Control Systems Corp. disputed the NHTSA’s 2017 conclusion that “there was a 40 percent reduction in the rate of crashes by Tesla vehicles that resulted in the deployment of airbags after they were equipped with Autosteer, a part of the automaker’s suite of automated driver-assist systems it markets as Autopilot.” The data that the NHTSA “used to reach that conclusion was incomplete and sometimes ignored by the agency in its analysis, according to Quality Control Systems.” The NHTSA said in a statement that it is “reviewing the report released by Quality Control Systems Corp. with interest and will provide comment as appropriate.” The story was reported similarly by Ars Technica.
In continuing coverage, the Los Angeles Times reports that Maryland-based Quality Control Systems found an NHTSA study, which concluded two years ago that “crash rates for Tesla cars dropped by almost 40% after installation of a self-drive technology called Autosteer,” violated “basic principles of standard research methodology to the point where no conclusion of any kind could be justified.” According to the LA Times, the NHTSA “did not dispute” the assertions made in the Quality Control Systems report, “but said it is ‘reviewing the report released by Quality Control Systems Corp. with interest and will provide comment as appropriate.’” On Wednesday, Tesla issued a statement saying, “Our own vehicle safety data for Q3 and Q4, which includes data from roughly two billion miles driven in Tesla vehicles, shows that drivers using Autopilot were significantly less likely to be involved in an accident than those driving without using Autopilot.”
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
