Tesla Reports Improved Miles-To-Accidents Ratio For Autopilot

Tesla Inc TSLA has released its “Vehicle Safety Report” for the third-quarter that contains figures related to accidents per mile involving the automaker’s vehicles with autopilot engaged and disengaged. 

What Happened: In Q3, the Elon Musk-led company registered one accident for every 4.59 million miles where drivers engaged the Autopilot, as per the report. 

In case the Autopilot wasn’t engaged, data indicates there was one accident for every 1.79 million miles driven.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration numbers indicate that there is one crash for every 479,000 miles driven in the United States, Tesla said in the report. 

Why It Matters: The latest numbers are an improvement over the same period last year, where, with the Autopilot engaged, there was one accident for every 4.34 million miles driven. Without the Autopilot engaged, there was one accident for every 1.82 million miles driven. 

Tesla also provided data for drivers that engaged active safety features, but not the Autopilot, which indicated some deterioration in safety. 

In Q3, there was one accident for every 2.42 million miles driven, while in a similar period a year earlier, there was one accident for every 2.70 million miles driven in cases only safety features were engaged and not the Autopilot.

Tesla began voluntarily releasing quarterly vehicle safety data in October 2018. 

The EV maker has made available its full-self driving software this month for beta testing and is taking a slow and cautious approach with its rollout.

Price Action: Tesla shares traded 0.9% lower at $416.50 in the after-hours session on Monday after closing mostly unchanged at $420.28.