>I don't think anyone would be particularly surprised to learn that Porsche drivers get into a lot of fatal accidents.

From the actual study:

                               Fatal Accident Rate   Compared to
    Rank| Model               |(per 10^9 Miles)    | Overall Average
    ----+---------------------+--------------------+-----------------
     1  | Hyundai Venue       | 13.9               | 4.9x
     2  | Chevrolet Corvette  | 13.6               | 4.8x
     3  | Mitsubishi Mirage   | 13.6               | 4.8x
     4  | Porsche 911         | 13.2               | 4.6x
     5  | Honda CR-V Hybrid   | 13.2               | 4.6x
     6  | Tesla Model Y       | 10.6               | 3.7x

The top most model of the Model Y is as fast in a straight line as the lowest base model 911, and the handling isn't even close to the same. Saying the Model Y has the performance of the 911 is not really an accurate statement.

Looking at the results.. it does make you wonder if there is something other underlying problem with the model Y vs the Model X or model 3.

Don't the aerodynamics severely limit the cornering performance of the Model Y? How can it have the same performance? Or is there only one metric of performance that is being measured?

What is "counter depth"?

This was my thought as well from looking at the actual list. Of the top 5 models with the worst fatal accident rate, 2 are luxury cars that seem like they'd attract drivers with reckless personalities (the Chevrolet Corvette and the Porsche 911). I don't think the average mile driven in a Corvette is really equivalent to the average mile driven in a Honda Civic.

This data is interesting, but not really useful for decisionmaking if we can't isolate the extent to which the disparities are caused by features of the actual vehicle, as opposed to driver selection factors.

Is anyone making an argument that the Model Y has an actual safety problem in its design? I'd like to hear about which physical aspect of the car people think is making it 4x less safe than the average car? I don't see anything obvious. Its crash test performance is fine. I'd hesitate to blame autopilot, since we know that they crash less often with autopilot enabled than without (even if due to selection factors).

You highlighted the correlation. I bet GoPro users have the highest fatality rate of all camera brands.

> brand that emphasizes safety or enjoyment of experience (like Hondas and Toyotas)

This is plausible on its face, and yet the Honda CR-V Hybrid ended up higher on the list than the Model Y. No idea how to explain that...

> The people who relate to that brand would, I would think, be more likely to flout laws like speed limits, failing to use indicators for turns or merges, and drive more aggressively than a brand that emphasizes safety or enjoyment of experience

And BMW owners like German shepherds?

Mine is French door without a front ice maker/water, and I love it. Way more room in the fridge too. Just open the bottom to get ice.

Dedicated Ice Makers can be quite good and fast at what they do too.

Rent a Tesla and try to adjust the mirrors while driving I dare you.

Less difficult but much more common:

Change the radio station / music.

Change the climate control.

Both of those require taking your eyes off the road and navigating through multiple touch screen-only modal windows. I have owned one for years and it is a distraction factory.

Gear selection is done via the screen on a Model 3 [1]. Technically, there is a touchscreen button on the rearview mirror unit, but I doubt anybody actually uses that.

Alternatively, you can use the AI gear selector from park which guesses what direction you want to go.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_eu/GUID-E9B387D...

I'm not entirely sure an anecdote about the dangers of singling out just one variable is a great counterpoint to a criticism of the practice of singling out just one variable.

Nick Mullen may disagree

We’ve had them in office before, plus plenty of public statements over the last 10 years.

It’s not exactly baseless speculation. People have things to base their guesses on.

You are not alone in this sentiment. It is beyond the pale that the denizens of a 'hacker forum' are often so narrow-minded when it comes to engaging those who think outside of the personal zone of ideological preference. The same people who have been yammering about the importance of 'diversity' are dead set against diversity of opinion. Grow up, folks, get outside your comfort zone and engage some of those deplorables, irredeemables, garbage, rednecks, hillbillies and bible thumpers instead of howling along with the masses. Go ahead and try, you may find they are more like you than you've been told by the chattering classes. Sure you'll have disagreements over certain things but that does not make them the evil monsters your moral mentors have been claiming they are. Just... grow up.

>> but the new administration hasn't even gone into office and I cannot get away from this.

Well, it cuts both ways. New administration should not be talking till they are in office.

A certain faction always think the rule on keeping politics out of forums doesn't apply to them, because their politics are too correct and important. I experience this problem in groupchats where the very people who furiously demanded people not bring politics into the group and to make the group politics-free routinely push their own politics. They say their politics are too important to not bring up.

These same people LEFT other groups dedicated to politics so presumably if others respond in kind by discussing their own politics, they will leave the last groupchats too. This is why a certain faction is such an echo chamber. Incidentally, I was just banned from r/Archaeology for arguing that a post arguing that archeologists should prepare to fight the fascist takeover was too political.

Yes, it will be annoying to have people make jokes about the people in overwhelming position of power.

Who knows ? Maybe it won't even be possible for the whole four years ?

It sucks for everyone. What you want us to do? Pretend it ain't so?

I'm actually not bantering.

> I loathe it

They are planning to appoint a nutjob who has publicly that he admitted cutting off the heads of whale carcasses with a chainsaw and dumping dead bears in the Central Park for "fun". Presumably he is also consuming those rotting animals carcasses that he keeps finding somehow (how else do you get brain worms?) to be the new US health secretary.

Seriously... what else do you need to know?

I'm also jaded by the constant snark I/we have to resort to to cope and disconnect from the insanity that is today's world

Can't be much more worse than an off topic comment.

These people have been inundated with the drivel of a billion dollar propaganda machine run by the most expensive campaign in history.

It's gonna take a while before they're back to normal again. I've heard so many "office of government efficiency" jokes in the last week I am tired of it too. But, in their defense if all you hear is how this administration is going to be the fourth reich (lol), destroy the country (lol), introduce fascism (lol), kill people (lol), etc you're going to react in a sarcastic way to anything you can grasp onto.

Though tbf, again, "office of government efficiency" seems like an oxymoron.

No, we need more SNL trump impressions, Trump pundits, and corny jokes

Can you mention one thing that Trump or Musk ever did out of altruism?

They have already announced what they are going to do, with the pro-Trump side saying he's not serious or will mellow out the plan before he takes office, and the anti-Trump side saying he will do exactly what he says he's going to do.

Basically a repeat of 2016.

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They are like this literally any time a Republican is in the White House. They were like this when Dubya was President too, even though today they act like he's some sort of elder statesman just because he hates Trump.

As a non-american watching the election, this was one of the reasons I didn't want the result to be the way it went. Just for having to hear about it constantly from everywhere.

This is why we need the Department of Department of Government Efficiency Efficiency so we can ensure the governmental efficiency of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Nobody needs to take notes, we’ve known what this is for a hundred years. We spent most of the last century trying to get rid of autocracy in various places, there’s entire libraries worth of books detailing this playbook at this point.

Unfortunately, they are. They have discovered that this kind of behavior gets people into office.

Expect to see more of it.

Doesn't each major government do independent safety testing/has independent safety requirements, anyway?

um, that can be read both ways. they very well could be taking notes on how to move in the same direction, not the opposite

That’s not what regulatory capture is

He had been "joking" about a third term already: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/us/politics/congress-reso...

So let's see if a Trump with total immunity will really leave gracefully this time.

> Buick - cars driven by geriatrics whose declines in vision and reaction speed probably should have resulted in their licenses being revoked five years ago but who still insist on driving themselves.

It takes until 85+ years old to match the accident frequency of the 16-25 years old cohort. Should we ban young adults from driving?

The reality is that the drivers tests should be MUCH more stringent for all cohorts. The reality is also that not having a car in the US is a horrible handicap.

So, we are stuck in a very suboptimal spot until self-driving cars come online.

I'd also venture that the profile of Tesla drivers is also a factor along with those other two brands. I'd be pretty sure that Tesla owners collectively drive more aggressively than the average car on the road. Teslas aren't being driven by soccer moms and careful grandmas.

If you have driven around rural roads in the US, you realize it does not take alcohol to leave the road. A moment of distraction is all it takes to get into a ditch.

https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD

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> We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure.

Better yet, we really need to consider urbanization. That way everything you need is right there by your own two feet. No need for any extra special transportation at all.

It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I'm not sure we can actually overcome that pressure.

> In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale

They're not a great solution to transportation at scale, but they're pretty good at small volume point to point traffic.

There's not enough people going my way on most of my trips to make transportation at scale worthwhile. Ferries work well for part of many of my trips, but I can take a car on the ferry to deal with the lack of scale on either side.

I could sometimes take a bus to the ferry, walk to light rail and take light rail to the airport. But the bus only runs during commute times, so that impacts viable flight times, and the walk to the light rail got pretty sketchy in the past several years and light rail itself can be sketchy too.

Most of my cars run fine any time of day, although peak traffic is annoying, and I'm dealing with lighting issues on one so I can't take it out unless I know I'll be home before dusk.

> much, much heavier

https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-...

> full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent

I don’t think “much, much” should be used when we are talking 10-15%. This will mislead people. There are outliers of course.

I would wager that most people don’t want to use public transit regularly. I know I certainly don’t.

Same with my older Toyota. They stuffed airbags in them, which is nice, but I've had several times where an adult on a bike is completely obscured, with my passenger having to scream "stop!". After the second time, I now bob my head like a maniac to look around them.

Can't wait for displays on pillars, to make them appear transparent.

I've never been in a Tesla so don't know if this would work, but you might try getting a small convex mirror (often called a "blind spot mirror") like these [1] at Amazon. I linked Amazon for convenience. They should also be easy to find locally at anyplace that has an auto section like Walmart, or auto parts stores like NAPA, O'Reilly, and AutoZone.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=blind+spot+mirror

It is a problem with most modern cars, and it is actually for safety reasons. These beams have to support the entire weight of the car in case it flips over in order to protect the occupants.

Same with both of my Mitsubishis. There's a roundabout near where I live that, when approaching it from one angle, the "beam" on the right hand side of the windshield totally obscures the whole road leading to the roundabout from another angle.

I have to shift in my seat to crane around to see if there is oncoming traffic I have to give way to.

They're both 10+ year old cars.

Also, the instrument cluster is located in the center, outside of the driver's direct view. And most of the important controls for the driver do not have tactile buttons.

> From 2016 to 2018 an average of 19,158 fatalities resulted from roadway departures, which is 51 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States.

https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD

Trees are anchored to the ground. Being heavier just reduces your ability to stop.

It ain't working then because these heavy cars tend to have more fatalities.

In insurance they call it the "law of lugnuts" - bigger cars have better survivability in direct collisions.

However, most traffic fatalities do not come from direct collisions. They come from driver hitting immobile objects.

Smaller, lighter cars take less kinetic energy with them around corners, are easier to steer and avoid obstacles, and are more likely to stay upright when leaving the road.

EVs are really heavy.

The average VW Golf weighs about 1.3 tons while the average VW ID.3 weighs about 1.8 tons. That's 40% heavier.

From my experience the model 3 also drove very different than other Teslas (in a good way). It was by far my favorite even being the cheapest.

Or, like medicine and a whole variety of other fields, “male” is assumed default and anyone who isn’t the default has worse outcomes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/business/car-safety-women...

Guess what year the NHTSA started using female crash dummies?

2003, thirty years after they started using male crash dummies. And the NHTSA's female dummies were essentially male dummies shrunk to 4'11" and lightened to 97/108lbs.

What year do you think they mandated a crash dummy that was actually based on the female body?

Just guess. I think you might be surprised that they haven't done this yet. It's in the works (see THOR-5F), but it's crazy it's taken so long.

Now guess when they first put the 2003 female crash dummy in the drivers seat for the frontal collision crash test. They still haven't!

If you look into car safety testing and design, they haven't used "Woman sized" crash test dummies until very very recently.

Cars were less safe for women because they were not designed to be safe for women.

None of the others are EVs, except maybe a small % of Kia Souls

Mostly non-EVs. In fact the only EVs are both Tesla.

I find the touchscreen actually less distracting and easier to use than the cell phone I had to use in a Honda civic. Also no critical functions need to be done on the touchscreen, they can all be done via physical buttons on the wheel or stocks.

EVs have full torque at 0 RPM so they are capable of accelerating much faster than an average ICE.

The manufacturer can alter based on software, how much current the electrical system is capable of supplying, how powerful the motors are, etc.

But even “normal non-performance” EVs that aren’t designed for performance like a Chevy Bolt come off the line way quicker than an equivalent normal car, even if they’re full 0 to 60 time isn’t that much faster.

People love to say that EVs are very heavy, or are much, much heavier, massively heavier and so on. This paints the wrong picture in people’s heads. The same people will use the Hummer EV as an example, but most people aren’t driving that.

https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-...

> full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent

To put it into perspective, from the table, you could load an ICE with passengers and some luggage and it would weigh the same as the EV equivalent with just the driver.

Eh, my neighbors Honda Pilots and other friends Toyota Siennas are heavier than my Y.

99.9% of drivers will never tow anything in their life.

Are you my in-laws?

We had to stop talking to them about the possibility of buying an EV because they kept bringing up irrational arguments like this one.

No matter how many times we reminded them that, in the two-plus decades we've been driving, we may have towed something maybe twice. Maybe.

One of our existing cars doesn't even have a towbar. The horror!

The irrational hatred / fear is real.

That just assumes that the crash tests are good indicators of actual safety. My understanding is that car manufacturers could go much further in the name of safety, but do just enough to scrape by on those crash tests. So there could definitely be differentials in terms of safety even among cars that have perfect safety measures from IIHS/NHTSA.

It’s hard to to be cynical about the intentions of the authors of the original article after seeing this…

Did you email them to ask for it? What sort of meta-analysis do you intend to do with their data? Have you released other interesting work in this field that would benefit the post? Why weren’t your intentions for their model published in your comment? What can we do to denormalize rhetoric in forum discussions?

If a bunch of lunatics buy the car because it is fast, and kill themselves, that doesn't necessarily affect my safety in the car if I'm buying it for some other feature and don't intend to drive it dangerously.

Because comparing the fatality rate of a Corolla going 50mph and a Tesla going 90mph is useless to a person who wants a car that is safe when driven responsibly.

Tesla drivers demographic was that maybe in 2015. Today, it's the California camry.

Now Elon will possibly in charge of making that government database disappear.

Some context for others - 2015 is fairly early in Tesla's history. The model 3 didn't even exist until 2017. The overwhelming majority of Teslas on the road today are Y's and 3's.

FWIW, I've personally owned three Teslas with zero problems, but none older than 2019. YMMV.

Tesla is a memestock. There's no reason it should be as high as it is; the fundamentals aren't that great and Musk is a danger to the company whether he's in or out of government.

Perhaps Musk needs to come to terms with the fact that the Teslas are not so safe. Maybe he needs to come to terms with the fact that his successful business model does not include customer satisfaction at all. Elon, just cope.

if you bet on an Indian behind the wheel of Tesla you win most. Inverse bet with Jeeps.

Sorry that clear observations violate decorum.

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If you had read my comment before replying, you would know that I recognized and even stipulated that the report was already normalized to miles driven.

I am suggesting that per mile driven and per vehicle brand on the road are not the same thing. Now that I think about it, miles driven per brand would be an interesting data point.

Just as an example of why per-brand might be useful, let's imagine that teslas are driven half the miles of the average for all other brands. so if that were the case and if the number of fatalities were equal, then that would result in tesla having 2x the fatality rate per mile. but at the same time, this doesn't let us appreciate the amount of time tesla spends on the road vs other brands. so miles might be half but time spent might be closer to 1 (equal time). and maybe that is because teslas are concentrated in urban-suburban interface environments in high congestion areas, whereas other brands are spread out across the country where for the same amount of time spent, twice as many miles are covered and congestion is less.

Data like that is needed to properly evaluate this result. And while I asked for per-vehicle-on-the-road, and my example didn't match that, you can still see how the simple per-mile-driven is insufficient.

They also could have noted the demographics of the drivers -- male/female and years of driving experience, things like that.

So again, I find the implications of this article to be very unfair.