Tesla’s Autosteer technology is software that was developed to help cars stay in their lanes. After the National Highway Transportation Safety Association (‘NHTSA’) analyzed Tesla’s crash data comparison in vehicles before and after Autosteer enabling, Tesla touted NHTSA’s findings that Autosteer increased vehicles’ crash safety by 40%.
Recently it has come to light that those numbers may not be accurate and the NHTSA’s study was flawed and based on incomplete data. Car collision attorneys at the Law Offices of Howard Craig Kornberg have watched these revelations unfold and they have concerns about how it all happened and that consumers may have been misled.
See below for a timeline of events that led up to this apparently flawed reporting.
QCS studied the data and concluded that out of the data submitted for over 43,000 Tesla vehicles and used by NHSTA for its safety analysis, only 5,714 of those vehicles were actually qualified for a before and after Autosteer comparison. The rest of the approximately 37,000 vehicles had incomplete data, which did not allow for an accurate or fair analysis. QCS further found that data appeared to show an almost 60% increase in accidents in the 5,714 qualifying vehicles after Autosteer was enabled, but apparently, there is reason to think that those findings may not be accurate based on some issues with the data presented.
It is concerning if these NHTSA safety numbers are as grossly inaccurate as we are now led to believe they are. Consumers have bought Teslas with Autosteer assuming that they are significantly safer than they now appear to be and they may have relied too much on this technology. It is certainly something to consider when looking at some of Tesla’s more notorious accidents due to Auto steering errors.
If you were injured in a car accident caused by someone else’s negligence or an auto-steering error, contact our experienced lawyer at the Law Offices of Howard Craig Kornberg to discuss the facts of the accident and the injuries sustained.