Tesla Model 3 Automobile
BYE THE HYPE "Tesla executives (CFO Vaibhav Taneja, Board Chair Robyn Denholm) have publicly claimed Autopilot/Full Self-Driving is up to 10x safer than human drivers, citing a Q3 2025 safety report showing 0.12 crashes per million miles with Autopilot engaged versus a 1.08 U.S. average."
THE REALITY A Reuters investigation (reported by Electrek) found Tesla's comparison methodology inflates the safety claim by roughly 3x — Tesla counts only crashes severe enough to deploy an airbag in its own data, then compares that to NHTSA/FHWA federal data that includes all crashes requiring a tow truck, a far lower severity threshold. Separately, NHTSA's own complaint database shows 420 real complaints filed against the 2023 Model 3 alone, dominated by Forward Collision Avoidance issues (131+ complaints combining several sub-categories) and Steering (52) — including multiple specific, dated reports of 'phantom braking' (the car braking hard for no obstacle) and at least two separate documented incidents of the vehicle running a red light while on Autopilot/FSD, one of which caused an accident. Tesla's Model 3 has also had 12 NHTSA recalls in 2023, 5 in 2024, 3 in 2025, and 1 so far in 2026 (most recently a seat-fastener issue, unrelated to Autopilot).