Tesla owners who also drive another vehicle are 50% less likely to crash their Tesla compared to their other vehicles, according to an interesting new study looking at EV drivers who drive multiple vehicles.
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The study comes from Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which collects telematics data from millions of vehicles.
At the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Charging Into an Electrified Future Conference this week, the team published findings from a study on how electric vehicle drivers' behaviors and safety change when driving their EVs compared to any other vehicle .
Interestingly, EV drivers are much less likely to crash their EV than their other vehicles, but there is a large variation between brands.
For example, the study found that Tesla owners are about 50% less likely to crash their EV than any other vehicle they use, while the opposite is true for Porsche EV owners.
Ryan McMahon, Vice President of Strategy for CMT, commented on the findings:
Among the most exciting new findings are comparisons between drivers who operate both an electric vehicle and an internal combustion, allowing for a better understanding of the risk across vehicle platforms. These findings include an analysis of Tesla drivers who also operate another vehicle. These drivers are nearly 50% less likely to crash while driving their Tesla than any other vehicle they use. We ran the same analysis on people who operate an EV Porsche and another vehicle. In this case, we observed the opposite result. EV Porsche drivers are 55% more likely to crash while driving their Porsche compared to their other vehicle.
There could be many different reasons why this is the case, and some of them are supported by data. Cambridge Mobile Telematics found that people driving Teslas were 21% less likely to be distracted by their phones while driving their EV compared to when driving their other car.
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Cambridge Mobile Telematics did not attempt to calculate the impact of Tesla's Autopilot, which includes a range of collision avoidance.
In its quarterly safety report, Tesla claims that its fleet's accident rate on Autopilot is much lower than without Autopilot.
It is important to conduct such studies, although they do not provide answers to the questions that arise. It would probably be safe to say that EVs have the potential to change driver behavior. Furthermore, the changes could be positive and negative. However, it would be very difficult to prove in all areas.
Source of information: electrek.co
