Tesla likes to advertise that its cars save lives. In the latest video, I examine this claim. The problem is that Tesla owners should not be compared to the average car buyer. Tesla is a luxury car and a status symbol. Tesla should be compared to other luxury cars. How does Tesla fare? Check out the video to find out.
***
One additional issue: what's the better metric for automotive fatality rate? Tesla uses deaths per million vehicle miles driven while others in industry use deaths per million vehicle-years.
This reminds me of the same issue in measuring air safety, a topic I addressed in my first book, Numbers Rule Your World (Chap 5) (link). Should airlines be measured based on deaths per million flight miles or deaths per million flights? MIT Professor Arnold Barnett looked into this issue and came out advocating for deaths per million flights. The main insight is that most air crashes happen at the start or end of a flight; the probability of a crash is not uniformly distributed over the miles of each journey. Thus, the death per million flights metric gets closer to the risk experience.
I'd imagine something similar at work here. The chance of getting killed in a car accident is not spread evenly throughout a trip. The additional risk is borne by taking an additional trip - once you're on a trip, the increase in risk over the distance of the trip isn't material.
***
To see the short video on Tesla, click here.
To see more of my videos, follow the channel.
If you are looking for evening classes to learn data science from industry experts in a high-touch, hands-on setting, check out the Fall Programs at Principal Analytics Prep.
If you want a one size fits all, I think you’d need to go with a car deaths per mile instead of per trip. Really it’s going to depend on many parameters: weather, type of road, driving behaviors in different areas. But there is no “safer” period between departure and arrival. Your risk is proportional to your time on the road, which better correlates to miles driven.
Posted by: Scott | 09/16/2019 at 10:20 AM
Scott: Is it really the case that driving 30 blocks is 3 times more risky than driving 10 blocks? We need some data to figure this out. Divide trips by length and look at the death rates within those subgroups. Here is some food for thought: https://www.npr.org/2009/11/29/120716625/the-deadliest-roads-are-rural
Posted by: Kaiser | 09/16/2019 at 12:54 PM
really the best way to measure this imo would be to look at people who own multiple cars, Tesla and other brands, and see whether they get die less when driving the Tesla's
Posted by: John-Henry | 09/18/2019 at 06:26 PM