Tesla AP already 10x safer & Tesla already self insuring- game over for FUD

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

Here is the problem I am having with this discussion thread. Crash testing rankings and safety are being considered synonymous... [snippage of good stuff] But there are other factors which play a part, for example headlight performance.

I certainly agree, and the IIHS should be praised for making an issue of inadequate headlights, which according to their ratings are a widespread problem across the industry. I think I read that in their initial assessment, about 90% of the models they tested had inadequate headlights? That's a serious problem and it's long overdue for getting serious attention.

So when someone says "Tesla is X times safer then every other car", can you define how you measure overall safety? If crash resistance or IHS ranking or CR ranking etc. is the only criteria, then you cannot make an absolute statement.

Totally agree. We should be careful to specify "accident rate" or "crash test scores", and not make a claim that a car is "safer" by X amount just because it has a better score by one metric (or test) or another.

So let me leave you with a hypothetical question. I buy a Chyrsler Pacificia identical to one Wyamo bought. But then Waymo adds sensors and the AV stuff. However they do not change the crash resistance or headlights or seat belts etc. Which is a safer car, the only I use or the one Waymo uses?

May I suggest in what I hope is a polite manner that it would be better to express that question more precisely. I submit a better way to phrase that would be:

Which is a safer car, the unmodified Chrysler Pacifica driven by you, or the prototype Chrysler Pacifica driven by Waymo's experimental self-driving system?

Waymo has confined the use of their cars to a sharply geofenced suburb of Phoenix, carefully chosen for having a very regular and predictable grid layout for its streets. As someone else pointed out, the Phoenix area is also one in which a driver is unlikely to encounter bad driving conditions due to weather.

Presumably, your driving of your personal car is not limited to such safe, predictable conditions. Therefore, you've posed an apples-to-oranges comparison, not an apples-to-apples one. Therefore, I submit, your question cannot be answered, or at least not in a meaningful way.

We're dealing with multiple cans of worms here. These are very complex issues. I don't think that trying to simplify them leads to a productive discussion.

But that's just my opinion; others may see it differently.

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[interestedinEV]

We're dealing with multiple cans of worms here. These are very complex issues. I don't think that trying to simplify them leads to a productive discussion.

Thank you. That was exactly the point I was driving it. Safety is a complex multi-criteria, multi-dimensional issue. That is why IHS and others give star ratings rather rankings. They do not want to say Car A is better than Car B, Tesla is better than Suburu etc. They say Car A is 5 stars, Car B is also be 5 stars. This whole thread started with the OP claiming Tesla is 10X better and I am trying to show the fallacy of that argument. There was a lot of simplification in the discussion and I wanted to point out with an example that it cannot be simplified.

No, I did not actually expect anyone to actually answer my question and do a ranking. You cannot. I wanted people (as you already have) acknowledge that it is a complex issue. In other words my question was rhetorical.