Automated cars tied to nearly 400 US crashes

DETROIT — Automakers reported nearly 400 crashes of vehicles with partially automated driver-assist systems, including 273 involving Teslas, according to statistics released Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cautioned against using the numbers to compare automakers, saying it didn’t weight them by the number of vehicles from each manufacturer that use the systems or how many miles those vehicles traveled.

Automakers reported crashes from July of last year through May 15 under an order from the agency.

Tesla’s crashes happened while vehicles were using Autopilot, “Full Self-driving,” Traffic Aware Cruise Control, or other driver-assist systems that have some control over speed and steering. The company has about 830,000 vehicles with the systems on the road.

The next closest of a dozen automakers that reported crashes was Honda, with 90. Honda says it has about six million vehicles on U.S. roads with such systems.

Subaru was next with 10, and all other automakers reported five or fewer, according to the statistics.

In a June 2021 order, NHTSA told over 100 automakers and automated vehicle tech companies to report serious crashes within one day of learning about them and to disclose less-serious crashes by the 15th day of the following month.

The agency is assessing how the systems perform and if new regulations are needed.

Six people were killed in the crashes involving driver-assist systems, NHTSA said. Of the deaths, five occurred in Teslas and one was reported by Ford.