Tesla Autopilot safety report shows improvement in Q2

For Q2, the company registered one accident for every 3.27 million miles with Autopilot engaged.

Tesla has released its latest safety report, showing an improvement over the previous quarter.

In Q2, Tesla vehicles registered one accident for every 3.27 million miles driven with Autopilot engaged. For comparison, the first quarter of 2019 and fourth quarter of 2018 both counted one accident every 2.9 million miles, while the best number was 3.34 million miles from the third quarter of last year.

In the most recent period, vehicles driving with Autopilot disengaged but Tesla's other safety systems active registered one accident every 2.19 million miles. Without the other safety technology, the fleet experienced an accident every 1.41 million miles.

"By comparison, NHTSA's most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 498,000 miles," the Q2 report notes.

Tesla has faced criticism for its statistics, as the company's own accident rates are tallied using entirely different methods than the NHTSA's data. In any case, seasonal variability likely plays a role in the quarter-to-quarter changes. The company has promised to continue posting new numbers every quarter, potentially illuminating the safety implications of Autopilot upgrades as more data is gathered in the coming years.