>the Model S had higher claim frequencies, higher claim severities and higher overall losses than other large luxury cars. Under collision coverage, for example, analysts estimated that the Model S's mileage-adjusted claim frequency was 37 percent higher than the comparison group, claim severity was 64 percent higher, and overall losses were 124 percent higher.
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/52/4/4
>>Is there any evidence that this is the case?
>Yes.
If there is evidence for it, this isn't it. Tesla cars having higher claim frequencies compared to say the puny Fiat 500 Electric (noted in the article) could just as well be explained by people driving it dangerously because it has "Ludicrous Mode".
Porsche also has 3x the accident rate of Daewoo. That doesn't mean Daewoo cars are 3x as safe, it just means that people who are looking for a hot-rod buy a Porsche and not a Daewoo[1].
> If there is evidence for it, this isn't it. Tesla cars having higher claim frequencies compared to say the puny Fiat 500 Electric (noted in the article) could just as well be explained by people driving it dangerously because it has "Ludicrous Mode".
This is not the claim in the linked article. The linked article claims that Tesla cars have a higher claim frequency than comparable gasoline-powered cars (i.e. large luxury cars such as a Porsche), whereas for example the Nissan Leaf has a lower claim frequency than comparable gasoline-powered cars (namely the Nissan Versa).
Put another way, if your choice is between a Tesla and a gasoline-powered large luxury car, the Tesla is more dangerous. If your choice is between the Nissan Leaf and the Nissan Versa, the Leaf is less dangerous. There was no comparison between the relative danger from a Tesla and a Leaf.
This thread started off with the GP comment by crabasa saying "Wouldn't Tesla vehicles have a higher rate of crashes [if Autopilot was so dangerous], all things being equal?".
I'm pointing out that all other things aren't equal, and you can't assume from overall crash data that you can tease out statistics about how safe a specific feature of the car is.
The comparison to the Fiat 500 is relevant because while the report didn't only compare Tesla vehicles to it, that's one of the comparisons.
Is a Tesla less safe than a Fiat 500 given that it's driven by the same sorts of drivers, in similar conditions and just as carefully as a Fiat 500? Maybe, but who knows? We don't have that data, since there's an up-front selection bias when you buy a high-performance luxury car.
I wasn't able to find the raw report mentioned in this article, but here's a similar older report they've published:
There you can see that the claim frequency of Tesla is indeed a bit higher than all other cars they're compared to, but this doesn't hold when adjusted for claim severity or overall losses. There cars like the BMW M6 and the Audi RS7 pull ahead of Tesla by far.
So at the very least you'd have to be making the claim that even if this data somehow showed how badly performing Autopilot was, that it was mainly causing things like minor scratches, not severe damage such as crashing into a freeway divider.
Just looking at these numbers there seems, to me anyway, to be a much stronger correlation between lack of safety and whether the buyer is a rich guy undergoing a mid-life crisis than any sort of Autopilot feature.
Evidence isn't the same as conclusive proof. Yes, the different demographics meant that we can't conclude that any difference is due to Telsa's autopilot. However it is evidence that Teslsa is more crash prone.
It isn't clear whether the demographics of Tesla drivers are more reckless than that of other luxury brands or not, as you point out Porsche drivers might tend to be more interested in going fast than Daewoo drivers. For Tesla on the one hand you attract people who are interested in helping the environment who I expect to be more conscientious and maybe therefore better drivers. But on the other hand there is Ludicrous Mode.
But since Tesla could have had a lower or higher crash rate than other brands and does have a higher rate we have to update our beliefs in the direction of the car being more likely to crash by conservation of expected evidence. Unless you'd argue that a lower crash rate means that Tesla's safety features prevent lots of crashes.
No, because as noted in my sibling comment[1] that would assume that you've got the same demographic buying a Lexus as a BMWs. That's been shown not to be the case, there's a selection bias where people who are going to drive unsafely buy higher performance vehicles.
Yes.
>the Model S had higher claim frequencies, higher claim severities and higher overall losses than other large luxury cars. Under collision coverage, for example, analysts estimated that the Model S's mileage-adjusted claim frequency was 37 percent higher than the comparison group, claim severity was 64 percent higher, and overall losses were 124 percent higher. http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/52/4/4