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  • 1961Nick
    1961Nick Posts: 2,107 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    JKenH said:
    Lots of good points made here about the statistics but the outrage seems disproportionate to my comments in the original post. Why does any negative post about Tesla arouse such vitriolic reaction?

    What I posted was 

    “I came across this table and linked article on Twitter today but it dates back to 2021.  I thought it was interesting given Tesla regularly comes out top in vehicle safety tests. Perhaps there is more to it.

    Well, yes there was more to it. The data was presented in a way that reflected badly on Tesla just as Cleantechica at al and Tesla themselves present data about their autopilot safety record in a manner which reflects well on them. 

    But then again some of the responses are just as misrepresentative. For instance, the statistics posted statistics to discredit the numbers in the table I posted. The table I posted which was accompanied by the comment “ Perhaps there is more to it” refers to 141 deaths. 

    To discredit this a spreadsheet is then posted listing media reports some of which refer to the same deaths. This duplication results in 356 deaths being totalled on the spreadsheet which is clearly incorrect. That may simply be poor formatting of the spreadsheet but the 356 deaths is irrelevant as as that is not the figure used in the article/table I posted. 

    So can we scale down the outrage and hyperbole (“beyond ridiculous”, “junk”) please and go back to the actual crux of my post which is; 

    Tesla on paper make very safe cars as witnessed by excellent performance in official safety tests but real world evidence suggests that this excellent performance in safety tests does not necessarily translate into reduced numbers of real world fatalities compared to other some vehicles from other manufacturers. 

    As an example are you more likely to die if a driver or passenger in a Tesla than in some other models of cars such as the Volvo XC90? It could be as @shinytop suggests be down to the driver mentality/experience/age but at the end of the day the statistics might still suggest that your chances of dying in a Tesla are greater than in the. XC90.

    If this topic is worthy of discussion (you might feel it isn’t) then let’s make that discussion more nuanced rather than simply trying to shoot down the argument with outrage and hyperbole because somebody has criticised your favourite brand of car. For instance if Tesla isn’t the safest car to travel in, it may still be the safest to be struck by as a pedestrian or cyclist. Are Teslas involved in more or less accidents than other cars of the same age? Leaving aside the spurious Tesla Autopilot safety reports are there any other statistics readily to hand?

    The other point of the original article which we shouldn’t really ignore is how Tesla as a manufacturer reacts to accidents. Is it better or worse than other manufacturers? Is it significant that there are so many NHTSA investigations ongoing into Tesla or is this misrepresented?






    That table has been compiled with the clear intention of discrediting Tesla & I do take issue with that. I can't think of an occasion when I've seen a more cynical use of very dubious data. 
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  • michaels
    michaels Posts: 29,091 Forumite
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    Fatalities per mile travelled on similar roads would be the minimum.  Probably then one would want an adjustment by vehicle type (bigger vehicles are inherently safer, performance vehicles are likely to have more accidents).

    My understanding is many of the vehicles in the table were only launched in 2021 in the US (at any sort of volume) so miles driven in the 3 previous years (I think this is what the death figures relate to, it is not clear) might be zero for some of the vehicles with zero deaths.

    As I say, deaths per mile driven must be the minimum data point for any sort of comparison.
    I think....
  • JKenH
    JKenH Posts: 5,117 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 7 February 2023 at 9:00PM
    1961Nick said:
    JKenH said:
    Lots of good points made here about the statistics but the outrage seems disproportionate to my comments in the original post. Why does any negative post about Tesla arouse such vitriolic reaction?

    What I posted was 

    “I came across this table and linked article on Twitter today but it dates back to 2021.  I thought it was interesting given Tesla regularly comes out top in vehicle safety tests. Perhaps there is more to it.

    Well, yes there was more to it. The data was presented in a way that reflected badly on Tesla just as Cleantechica at al and Tesla themselves present data about their autopilot safety record in a manner which reflects well on them. 

    But then again some of the responses are just as misrepresentative. For instance, the statistics posted statistics to discredit the numbers in the table I posted. The table I posted which was accompanied by the comment “ Perhaps there is more to it” refers to 141 deaths. 

    To discredit this a spreadsheet is then posted listing media reports some of which refer to the same deaths. This duplication results in 356 deaths being totalled on the spreadsheet which is clearly incorrect. That may simply be poor formatting of the spreadsheet but the 356 deaths is irrelevant as as that is not the figure used in the article/table I posted. 

    So can we scale down the outrage and hyperbole (“beyond ridiculous”, “junk”) please and go back to the actual crux of my post which is; 

    Tesla on paper make very safe cars as witnessed by excellent performance in official safety tests but real world evidence suggests that this excellent performance in safety tests does not necessarily translate into reduced numbers of real world fatalities compared to other some vehicles from other manufacturers. 

    As an example are you more likely to die if a driver or passenger in a Tesla than in some other models of cars such as the Volvo XC90? It could be as @shinytop suggests be down to the driver mentality/experience/age but at the end of the day the statistics might still suggest that your chances of dying in a Tesla are greater than in the. XC90.

    If this topic is worthy of discussion (you might feel it isn’t) then let’s make that discussion more nuanced rather than simply trying to shoot down the argument with outrage and hyperbole because somebody has criticised your favourite brand of car. For instance if Tesla isn’t the safest car to travel in, it may still be the safest to be struck by as a pedestrian or cyclist. Are Teslas involved in more or less accidents than other cars of the same age? Leaving aside the spurious Tesla Autopilot safety reports are there any other statistics readily to hand?

    The other point of the original article which we shouldn’t really ignore is how Tesla as a manufacturer reacts to accidents. Is it better or worse than other manufacturers? Is it significant that there are so many NHTSA investigations ongoing into Tesla or is this misrepresented?






    That table has been compiled with the clear intention of discrediting Tesla & I do take issue with that. I can't think of an occasion when I've seen a more cynical use of very dubious data. 
    Ok, Nick, I think you’ve made that point but what about moving on and actually discussing the point I am making. Outrage isn’t an argument. As I said: 

    So can we scale down the outrage and hyperbole (“beyond ridiculous”, “junk”) please and go back to the actual crux of my post which is; 

    Tesla on paper make very safe cars as witnessed by excellent performance in official safety tests but real world evidence suggests that this excellent performance in safety tests does not necessarily translate into reduced numbers of real world fatalities compared to other some vehicles from other manufacturers. 

    The other point of the original article which we shouldn’t really ignore is how Tesla as a manufacturer reacts to accidents. Is it better or worse than other manufacturers? Is it significant that there are so many NHTSA investigations ongoing into Tesla or is this misrepresented?


    Or is there nothing to be discussed?

    Edit: penultimate paragraph added 
    Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)
  • JKenH
    JKenH Posts: 5,117 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 7 February 2023 at 8:59PM
    michaels said:
    Fatalities per mile travelled on similar roads would be the minimum.  Probably then one would want an adjustment by vehicle type (bigger vehicles are inherently safer, performance vehicles are likely to have more accidents).

    My understanding is many of the vehicles in the table were only launched in 2021 in the US (at any sort of volume) so miles driven in the 3 previous years (I think this is what the death figures relate to, it is not clear) might be zero for some of the vehicles with zero deaths.

    As I say, deaths per mile driven must be the minimum data point for any sort of comparison.
    Much the same as what I said to Nick. I understand your outrage (as expressed in your earlier post) but am now getting confused as to which dates the data refer to. You are are suggesting 2019 to 2021 whereas @ABrass suggests the data dates from 2017. 

    Let’s move on and accept the data presented leaves much to be desired and as Nick suggests the intention was to discredit Tesla. Does that mean if there is an intent to discredit that there is no substance in the data? The initial intention of the allegations about Partygate was I believe intended to discredit the Tories but does that mean there was no substance in them? No.

    So do you have any thoughts on what is the crux of this issue which just for good measure I will repeat here?

    Tesla on paper make very safe cars as witnessed by excellent performance in official safety tests but real world evidence suggests that this excellent performance in safety tests does not necessarily translate into reduced numbers of real world fatalities compared to other some vehicles from other manufacturers. 

    The other point of the original article which we shouldn’t really ignore is how Tesla as a manufacturer reacts to accidents. Is it better or worse than other manufacturers? Is it significant that there are so many NHTSA investigations ongoing into Tesla or is this misrepresented?
    Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)
  • 1961Nick
    1961Nick Posts: 2,107 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 7 February 2023 at 10:17PM
    JKenH said:
    1961Nick said:
    JKenH said:
    Lots of good points made here about the statistics but the outrage seems disproportionate to my comments in the original post. Why does any negative post about Tesla arouse such vitriolic reaction?

    What I posted was 

    “I came across this table and linked article on Twitter today but it dates back to 2021.  I thought it was interesting given Tesla regularly comes out top in vehicle safety tests. Perhaps there is more to it.

    Well, yes there was more to it. The data was presented in a way that reflected badly on Tesla just as Cleantechica at al and Tesla themselves present data about their autopilot safety record in a manner which reflects well on them. 

    But then again some of the responses are just as misrepresentative. For instance, the statistics posted statistics to discredit the numbers in the table I posted. The table I posted which was accompanied by the comment “ Perhaps there is more to it” refers to 141 deaths. 

    To discredit this a spreadsheet is then posted listing media reports some of which refer to the same deaths. This duplication results in 356 deaths being totalled on the spreadsheet which is clearly incorrect. That may simply be poor formatting of the spreadsheet but the 356 deaths is irrelevant as as that is not the figure used in the article/table I posted. 

    So can we scale down the outrage and hyperbole (“beyond ridiculous”, “junk”) please and go back to the actual crux of my post which is; 

    Tesla on paper make very safe cars as witnessed by excellent performance in official safety tests but real world evidence suggests that this excellent performance in safety tests does not necessarily translate into reduced numbers of real world fatalities compared to other some vehicles from other manufacturers. 

    As an example are you more likely to die if a driver or passenger in a Tesla than in some other models of cars such as the Volvo XC90? It could be as @shinytop suggests be down to the driver mentality/experience/age but at the end of the day the statistics might still suggest that your chances of dying in a Tesla are greater than in the. XC90.

    If this topic is worthy of discussion (you might feel it isn’t) then let’s make that discussion more nuanced rather than simply trying to shoot down the argument with outrage and hyperbole because somebody has criticised your favourite brand of car. For instance if Tesla isn’t the safest car to travel in, it may still be the safest to be struck by as a pedestrian or cyclist. Are Teslas involved in more or less accidents than other cars of the same age? Leaving aside the spurious Tesla Autopilot safety reports are there any other statistics readily to hand?

    The other point of the original article which we shouldn’t really ignore is how Tesla as a manufacturer reacts to accidents. Is it better or worse than other manufacturers? Is it significant that there are so many NHTSA investigations ongoing into Tesla or is this misrepresented?






    That table has been compiled with the clear intention of discrediting Tesla & I do take issue with that. I can't think of an occasion when I've seen a more cynical use of very dubious data. 
    Ok, Nick, I think you’ve made that point but what about moving on and actually discussing the point I am making. Outrage isn’t an argument. As I said: 

    So can we scale down the outrage and hyperbole (“beyond ridiculous”, “junk”) please and go back to the actual crux of my post which is; 

    Tesla on paper make very safe cars as witnessed by excellent performance in official safety tests but real world evidence suggests that this excellent performance in safety tests does not necessarily translate into reduced numbers of real world fatalities compared to other some vehicles from other manufacturers. 

    The other point of the original article which we shouldn’t really ignore is how Tesla as a manufacturer reacts to accidents. Is it better or worse than other manufacturers? Is it significant that there are so many NHTSA investigations ongoing into Tesla or is this misrepresented?


    Or is there nothing to be discussed?

    Edit: penultimate paragraph added 
    I have no idea whether you're more likely to die in a 3 series or a model 3 & the data in that table wouldn't be the least bit useful in drawing any conclusions even if you did have data for the BMW.

    I am surprised by the number of pedestrians & cyclists killed in accidents involving a Tesla. Is that because of inappropriate use of the vehicles considerable performance, or new Tesla owners unable to cope with near supercar performance? Maybe all the 'phone zombies' wandering into the highway are getting run over by near silent EVs?

    The NHTSA are obsessed with Tesla & launch an investigation after every fatal accident to see if Autopilot or FSD beta is to blame. Despite all the onboard video & available telemetry, generally nothing ever comes of these investigations other than "driver error".

    Tesla makes numerous OTA safety updates over the course of a year - the latest one disengages Autopilot as you pass a motorway junction. 
    4kWp (black/black) - Sofar Inverter - SSE(141°) - 30° pitch - North Lincs
    Installed June 2013 - PVGIS = 3400
    Sofar ME3000SP Inverter & 5 x Pylontech US2000B Plus & 3 x US2000C Batteries - 19.2kWh
  • propnut
    propnut Posts: 122 Forumite
    100 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    edited 7 February 2023 at 10:42PM
    I, like many others on here I am sure, am an IT engineer (originally started as an electronics techie). I have been in the industry 37 years. What I have learned in that time is that if it has software it will go wrong. Software is written by humans, humans make mistakes and these translate as bugs in the code. Now the "smarter" a car becomes the more "smart" components it has with many having their own firmware albeit communicating over the CAN bus.

    A traditional mechanical car can of course break down but generally the cause of an accident is the muppet behind the wheel. That one muppet causes one crash that can involve one or more vehicles BUT in a single location. In contrast a single critical bug in a critical component of a modern car e.g. the braking system can potentially cause multiple accidents in multiple places all over the world. What's more the more components you have the greater the chances of multiple points of failure and more finger pointing occurs when bad stuff happens. Take for example the example of the woman killed by the autonomous vehicle a few years back. The providers of the various systems that were meant to work together to detect the woman blamed failures in each others kit.

    If there's one thing I have learned in my years of being in my field is NEVER BE AN EARLY ADOPTER. You will end up paying for the R&D. Not only that, but the price will come down. Look at BlueRay players, they were like £250 when they first came out, now you can get one for sub £50. Rather wait a good few years for others to have spent their hard earned cash before dipping your toe in the water.  I have only, in the last two years, bought my wife and I a Prius each. They were launched in 1997. They are good solid tech. I will wait a similar period of time before considering an EV.
    15 x JASolar 405w Panels installed 25/11/22, 5 SE,  5S,  5SW
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  • JKenH
    JKenH Posts: 5,117 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper

    MFG to invest £50m in EV charging hubs in 2023


    Even though I haven’t got an EV at the moment I went to have a look at what (I think) is my nearest MFG EV charging hub at Barnetby off the roundabout at the junction of the M180/ A15 and was impressed by the site and the location with 8 chargers under a canopy (only one in use on Sunday afternoon so no queues.) It’s too close to home to be much use to me but let’s have more of these please on all trunk roads. 



    Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)
  • 1961Nick said:
    ...

    I am surprised by the number of pedestrians & cyclists killed in accidents involving a Tesla. Is that because of inappropriate use of the vehicles considerable performance, or new Tesla owners unable to cope with near supercar performance? Maybe all the 'phone zombies' wandering into the highway are getting run over by near silent EVs?

    ...
    I am not surprised that there is a relatively high number of pedestrians / cyclists killed by Teslas - not because of the brand, but because it is an electric car. When I say that I drive an EV, the most common comment I get in return is "I was almosr run over by an electric car". My Zoe has a pedestrian horn by default. I can turn it off, but it resets when the car is turned off. I am increasingly surprised how many brands of EV don't have this. But, it only operates up to 20mph. I imagine that it is quite possible to come up to a cyclist doing a smidge over 20mph and they would never know I am there.

    Every so often my work decides I need to do a defensive driving course (half hearted as it is only online). The premise of which is to avoid accidents by spotting when other people make mistakes (or are likely to).

    I believe that my driving has become more defensive since I started driving an EV because pedestrians, cyclists and other drivers seem to notice me less. (After an initial period of being excited that my car would let me be a girl racer!). I no longer accelerate at (or near) the full ability of my car because other drivers don't expect me to be able to. I reverse park in public carparks when ever I can because I got fed up of people standing behind me yapping because they didn't realise I am trying to get out of the space (stupidly, the pedestrian horn does not operate in reverse!). At least if I reverse park I can give them an evil glare. 😉 

    But, I have also noticed that with more EVs on the road my car is no longer the nippiest off the lights, squeezing into a gap in traffic is not as comfortable. I suspect that most EV drivers haven't been lucky enough to learn about defensive driving and therefore don't realise that with "greater power comes greater responsibility". (😂 I can't believe I managed to use that! 😉)
    4.3kW PV, 3.6kW inverter. Octopus Agile import, gas Tracker. Zoe. Ripple x 3. Cheshire
  • Grumpy_chap
    Grumpy_chap Posts: 18,219 Forumite
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    michaels said:
    As I say, deaths per mile driven must be the minimum data point for any sort of comparison.
    This is the difficulty in any motoring-related assessment of safety and frequency of incidents - the obvious metric is per mile driven.  That metric seems to be rarely used, perhaps because the data is not available and, perhaps, because it would yield date results that do not suit the prejudice.

    The most outlandish case has to be our local authority, where the 20 mph speed limit was introduced very early 2020.  Data was published late 2020 comparing a 6-month period post change with the same 6-month period in the year pre-change.  The data was normalised to "incidents per 10,000 residents". This assessment seems entirely incorrect to me:
    1. the obvious normalisation would be per distance travelled - number or residents is irrelevant (and quite likely a virtual constant over only 2 consecutive years).
    2. comparing the one post-change data set with only the one pre-change data set is too small a sample.  The pre-change data set should be over some statistically meaningful number of years as there is no saying that 2019 is a typical year.  Obviously, that is more difficult for the post-change data as, if the evidence was that the change made things less safe, it would not be correct to wait for several years' data before reversing the implementation.
    Most of the population seem to either not understand, or not be interested, in that type of critique and simply rely on the headline data to have been correctly reported to them by those in power.
  • JKenH
    JKenH Posts: 5,117 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 8 February 2023 at 11:25AM
    My own two penn’orth.

    1. We don’t seem to have any truly reliable data on deaths involving Teslas or for any other makers.
    2. There are a (disproportionately?) high number of reports of deaths involving Teslas in the media.
    3. A proportion (I suspect but with no evidence) are more unusual (bizarre) than the average auto accidents. For example the numbers of Tesla’s colliding with emergency vehicles.
    4. Tesla Deaths has, I suspect, rightly or wrongly, focussed in on deaths involving Teslas, possibly because of the frequency and bizarre nature of the accidents (both fatal and non fatal) involving Teslas and compiled a database of media reports. (By bizarre I mean reports of phantom braking and sudden unintended acceleration etc).
    5. Tesla Deaths has then compared the number of Tesla deaths reported in the media with non Teslas and concluded that there are more deaths involving Teslas than deaths involving other manufacturers as a proportion of the vehicles on the road. 
    6. Tesla deaths have reported their findings which, as with anything involving Tesla, found its way into the media.
    7. Some readers have taken this as gospel and reached the conclusion that Teslas are the most dangerous cars on the road and reported the Tesla Death stats as evidence of this. Other readers have dismissed the statistics as false, irrelevant and produced solely for the purposes of discrediting Tesla.
    8 The truth is usually somewhere in between the two extreme views.

    My own thoughts: 
    A. I have an open mind and if something gets flagged up involving a subject of interest to me, I usually consider it is looking into a bit further. 
    B. I cannot find any other statistics to support the Tesla Deaths figures or directly refute them.
    C. More than 46,000 people die in road crashes in the US each year and I cannot relate this to the figures published in the original linked article/table. The table does not represent the total number of deaths and it is not clear in the metric adopted. 
    D. The statistics are incomplete and most probably biased because of the over reporting in the media of Tesla accidents in general.
    E. My gut feeling FWIW is that there are perhaps more bizarre accidents involving Teslas than other vehicles, most probably because of the misuse of Autopilot by a very small proportion of drivers. 
    F. I cannot say whether this translates into more fatalities although the fact that the NHTSA are looking into so many colllisions between Teslas and emergency vehicles suggests this may be the case.
    G. I believe there may be a small sub set of younger Tesla drivers who are inexperienced and in whose hands a Tesla can be more dangerous because of its performance. I liken this to the hot hatch era of young drivers in the UK in the 1990s or whenever it was. (Basically showing off the performance of the car and getting it wrong, often with fatal consequences).
    H. Because of the performance of Teslas I suspect average impact speeds may be higher hence more potential for fatalities (no evidence but from my own experience I have seen more Teslas driven at speed than say a Leaf).
    I. I believe, based on crash test performance that if you are unlucky enough to be involved in an accident at any given speed you are likely to be safer in a Tesla than in another car.
    J. I suspect that pedestrians and cyclists may fare better in a collision with a Tesla than most other cars at the same speed of impact. 
    K. I believe the potential for accidents with cyclists and pedestrians at slow speed may be higher than for ICE cars because of the silent nature of EVs.
    L. I remain concerned that while on balance the benefits of driver assistance systems on Teslas outweighs any drawbacks, the potential still exists for technology induced erratic behaviour and the potential for accidents at a higher level than in other cars. 
    M. I believe that other ADAS systems on other cars, while not as competent in some aspects of automated driving may be less prone to technology induced erratic driving behaviour. 
    N. Any comparisons here are intended for cars of similar age to the Teslas being considered


    Northern Lincolnshire. 7.8 kWp system, (4.2 kw west facing panels , 3.6 kw east facing), Solis inverters, Solar IBoost water heater, Mitsubishi SRK35ZS-S and SRK20ZS-S Wall Mounted Inverter Heat Pumps, ex Nissan Leaf owner)
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