Tesla scoffs at highest fatality crash rate report as it cites stellar Model 3 and Model Y safety tests

Tesla’s chief engineer Lars Moravy is out in force, arguing that a recent report that found out Teslas have the highest fatality crash rate of all vehicles on the road is inaccurate.

The report parsed data from the federal U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database that the NHTSA maintains, identifying accidents with cars in the 2018-2022 model year range that result in at least one fatal outcome for the driver or passengers.

As a brand, it turned out, Tesla had the highest fatality crash rate of all vehicles on the road in the study. In terms of individual models, it was the Hyundai Venue that carries the unenviable trophy, but the Model S had double the average fatality crash rate, and crashes with Tesla’s most popular Model Y resulted in almost four times the average death rate, making it into the top 10 most dangerous vehicles in the US according to said ranking.

Needless to say, singling out Tesla as the vehicle brand with the highest fatality crash rate might be true on paper according to the numbers in the FARS database, but they are not really comparable to other manufacturers as those have way more vehicle models than Tesla that only sells two cars en masse.

In response, Tesla’s Lars Moravy said that the “math is incorrect - crash test data is real; Teslas are among the safest cars,” and mused that it might be “a bad denominator in the per mile calc, by end 2022, US MY miles driven >7B, M3 ~19B.” The undeniable crash test safety data of Tesla is real, of course, but it is not mutually exclusive with the fatality rate during road accidents, for which there are plenty of possible reasons.

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