Tesla owners are half as likely to crash, A new study about EV drivers who drive more than one vehicle found that Tesla owners who drive another vehicle are 50% less likely to get into an accident in their Tesla than in their other vehicles.
Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which gathers telematics data from millions of vehicles, did the study.
This week, at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Charging Into an Electrified Future Conference, the group shared the results of a study that looked at how drivers’ habits and safety change when they drive an electric vehicle (EV) instead of any other vehicle.
Tesla owners are half as likely to crash with their EV
For example, the study found that Tesla owners are half as likely to get into an accident with their EV than with any other vehicle they own, but Porsche owners are the opposite.
Ryan McMahon, Vice President of Strategy at CMT, had this to say about the results:
One of the most interesting new findings is that drivers who drive electric cars and cars with internal combustion engines can be compared. This lets us know how risky each type of car is. One of these findings is looking at Tesla drivers who also drive other cars. When driving a Tesla, these people are almost 50 per cent less likely to crash than when driving any other car they own. Next, we did the same analysis on people who drive both a Porsche and something else. In this case, we saw the opposite of what we expected. Compared to their other vehicle, people who drive a Porsche are 55% more likely to get into an accident.
Cambridge Mobile Telematics
This could happen for many different reasons, and some of them are backed up by data. For example, Cambridge Mobile Telematics also found that people who drove Teslas were 21% less likely to use their phones while driving than when they drove their other car.
They were 9 per cent less likely to drive faster than what was allowed.
The group also had a second theory, which was harder to prove (according to the Boston Globe):
“Another factor could be that electric cars need to stop charging. McMahon said that accidents happen more often on longer trips but that Tesla drivers have to stop and charge their cars more often and for longer periods than gas car drivers do when they stop to refuel. “That could make driving safer because it would make people less tired,” he said. “Longer trips are riskier, but there are times when people have to stop on an EV trip.”
Cambridge Mobile Telematics didn’t try to consider the effects of Tesla’s Autopilot, which has a set of features that help avoid accidents.
Tesla says in its quarterly safety report that its fleet accident rate is much lower with Autopilot than without it.
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