I've often wondered if Tesla is gaming the figures by only deploying the airbags in really bad crashes, whereas other manufacturers might deploy the airbags for pretty minor bumps.
This in turn makes them look really good on 'number of accidents where airbags deploy'.
From that alone, we can conclude that their telemetry is bad at fatal crash detection. However, when we contrast it against their regular crash reporting where ~90% are telemetry, we can further conclude that either crashes are massively under-reported or fatal accidents are uniquely under-reported (even ignoring the unknown base rate vs reported rate problem). In either case, the massive unexplained discrepancy in the most visible, fatal crashes demonstrates that their data collection procedures are grossly inadequate to conclude any positive safety statistic.
The fact that Tesla repeatedly markets safety statistics based on grossly inadequate data collection procedures without any attempts to identify the true, higher rate, and without qualification is criminally repugnant.
[1] https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/sgo-2021-01/SGO-2021-01_In...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2024/t...
I wonder if Tesla will consider that for future models...
So even as a Tesla "hater", but as a paramedic, first generation airbags were very simplistic. Essentially, "if speed > x mph and collision = true then deploy".
Nowadays, advanced airbag systems do calculations based on speed, G forces, angle of intrusion, lateral movement, etc., and decide "will the airbag system cause or risk more injury?", i.e. "can the passenger restraint system (i.e. seatbelts) do sufficient work to minimize injury".
So you can get relatively low speed collision with heavy lateral movement causing a deployment, but some other deployments at 30mph not deploying airbags.
All that being said, I do not believe Tesla (or any other manufacturer) so describe accidents only in terms of airbag deployment. Other factors like speed, G force felt, did seatbelt pretensioners activate, should all be sufficient to categorize as an accident.
There isn't a need to wonder when independent data gatherers have already answered the question.
It can even be best in class when tested, rarely deploy, and save more lives than competitors. It just needs to correctly detect cases like this[1].
I'm not aware of a definition of gaming in which the system is overall safer or equivalently safer than other top-tier competitors. That seems objectively better than deploying airbags when they will harm the occupants or total the vehicle when not-needed.
Tesla is gaming the system by excluding accidents where the airbags don't deploy from the "Autopilot/FSD accidents" dataset, thus artificially deflating the number of accidents.
No they haven't. For a start, IIHS doesn't rank "airbags".
And then... Tesla fans love to latch on to this as a trope.
The IIHS -groups- vehicles into safety levels by class. It doesn't rank in class, at all.
So what, you might say, they're still in the top or top two safety levels, they deserve credit... Except:
There are twenty one other vehicle at that same level or higher in the same segment ("mid-size luxury"), and sixteen if you only count the top segment.
Of those, Tesla could be number 1, or number 16. You don't know. So this whole meme of "Tesla is the safest" needs to die, it's just bluster.
For example, the Model Y is one of five cars that achieved the highest rating in its size class, not one of 16. You are grouping their highest and second-highest tiers together.
Additionally, the Model Y is by and far the cheapest vehicle in that category.
So, yes. If you consider a car to be classified by size and price, I think it is a very reasonable way to classify a car, the Model Y is very clearly the best in its class.
Who said I was talking about the Y? (I also specifically said that I was grouping them ("they're still in the top or top two safety levels"), because IIHS has "Top Safety Pick+", "Top Safety Pick" and "Others". Though I have been looking at 2023. But let's break it down:
Tesla Model 3: Didn't make the cut.
Model S: Didn't make the cut.
> So, yes. If you consider a car to be classified by size and price, I think it is a very reasonable way to classify a car, the Model Y is very clearly the best in its class.
"So yes" implies a logical conclusion. But your initial point was "IIHS says Tesla has the best airbags in class", which it does not.
For one model of car it says that it is in the top five of that segment.
But then somehow you blow that out to be "clearly, best in class, because it's cheapest".
Like, no. The other cars in the category could have better safety than the Model Y. And if your argument is "its best because its cheapest" when it comes to safety? Wow. Huh. I suppose we all know the safest components are the cheapest?
Comparing the minor differences in airbag performance among a handful of cars is not particularly relevant to the overall argument, especially when considering the vast number of poorly performing vehicles on the market.
And, yes, I do believe that cost matters here. Cars exist in size and price classes. If you cannot comprehend that, that's fine. But it doesn't change the argument.
If you read my other comments in this thread, I partially agree with you. But I also think Tesla's "we don't count it as an FSD/AP incident if airbags weren't deployed" is "convenient", given that "advanced airbags" (which are a spec) use a whole variety of means to determine deployment which don't correlate to the severity of the incident, i.e.:
depending on other parameters, you can collide with someone at 20-30mph, but have no airbag deployment, because the algorithm decides that passenger restraint is sufficient. Great. Except if a car operating in FSD/AP mode causes a 20-30mph collision with something else, that's a notable incident. Well, most people would think so. Tesla explicitly says this is NOT an incident when reporting FSD/AP stats. Huh.
> And, yes, I do believe that cost matters here. Cars exist in size and price classes. If you cannot comprehend that, that's fine. But it doesn't change the argument.
I can comprehend that just fine. But it's not a factor for IIHS, which is what -you- brought into the argument when you said "IIHS says it's best in class for safety".
1. It doesn't.
2. You can't then say "oh, well, if you consider cost as well, then clearly it must be best in class", which is a conclusion that cannot inherently be drawn from the previous.
It -may- be best in class "overall", not for safety alone, but that's got nothing to do with what you said. The flow of that argument was:
You: It's best in class.
Me: Not demonstrably, it's one of several cars that are in the top category for that class.
You: Well, if you factor in price, too, it's "clearly" best in class.
Everyone likes paying less money, sure. But you're already talking about the luxury segment, where just maaaaybe people are conscious of more factors than price when considering even this broader definition of best in class.
A slight bump won't set off your airbag in any car.
But I do want to point out that ~nobody would buy a car that deploys airbags for "pretty minor bumps". Airbag deployment is a serious event, it can injur or in rare cases kill a person itself.