Tesla's getting enough hours under control at this point that they're likely to win the regulation battle for Uber simply by virtue of statistics, though. Obviously there has been the occasional tragedy (and there no doubt will be more), but the point where they launch the "Autopilot is provably safer than humans!" press release isn't too far out at this point.
Again, the measuring stick is real drivers. And real drivers are really bad at this stuff too.
That press release was sent out more than a year ago and it is about as fallacious as it gets and I'm surprised the whole thing keeps getting airtime.
For the comparison to hold you need to do the following:
- discount all the hours when humans are in adverse conditions and autopilot is not normally engaged
- remove motorcycles and other vehicles from the pool
After you do that Tesla is still much less safe than your average driver. Their whole spiel of taking the easy 80% in miles of driving and claiming victory has been debunked so often now it is getting boring. It's the remaining 20% where the fatalities are and which - coincidentally - are the hard bits.
Again, the measuring stick is real drivers. And real drivers are really bad at this stuff too.