Toronto, Ontario — The first-ever mandated release of advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) crash data took place on Wednesday, revealing that 273 crashes involving ADAS have been linked to Tesla since July of 2021—more than any other automaker.
More than 500 total crash reports from automakers and tech companies were submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) following the call for OEM information it sent out in June 2021, according to Reuters. Of the 392 that involved ADAS, six resulted in a death and five in serious injury.
Honda made up for 90 of the 392 ADAS-related crashes.
It was also found that 130 crashes can be attributed to prototype autonomous driving technology.
Of those 130 crashes, NHTSA received 62 crash reports from autonomous driving developer Waymo and 23 from General Motors’ “Cruise” technology.
Waymo said its crashes were not high severity and one-third were in manual mode. Airbags deployed in only two crashes.
Cruise said it “has logged millions of miles in one of the most complex urban driving environments because saving lives is our chief aim.”
NHTSA said in releasing the first batch of data that it has already been used to trigger investigations and recalls and helped inform existing defect probes.
“By providing NHTSA with critical and timely safety data this will help our investigators quickly identify potential defect trends,” said NHTSA administrator Steven Cliff, though he warned that analyzing solely on the quantity of reports from a given automaker “is by itself inadequate to draw conclusions.”
He points out that automakers track crashes in different ways and that a consistent across-the-board metric has yet to be established in order to accurately compare this data.
Honda told Reuters it had found no defects in the systems and its crash reports were based on unverified customer statements “to comply with NHTSA’s 24-hour reporting deadline.”
No other automaker reported more than ten ADAS crashes during the one year period.
The NHTSA recently upgraded its probe into Tesla’s “phantom braking” defect to an “engineering analysis,” the final stage before a recall is issued.
Tesla did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The NHTSA says it plans to release new data monthly.
