A recent calm Sunday night in Reno, Nev. was disrupted when a Tesla Cybertruck crashed into a pole while operating Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode. The owner of the Cybertruck, Jonathan Challinger, took to X (formerly Twitter) to share news of the crash.
“[It] made no attempt to slow down or turn until it had already hit the curb,” wrote Challinger in early February in a now-deleted post.
The driver admitted fault, claiming he was not paying attention to the road. He cautioned others not to repeat his mistakes and credited Tesla’s design.
“Thank you @Tesla @cybertruck for engineering the best passive safety in the world. I walked away without a scratch,” wrote Challinger.
The safety claim
In 2023, Tesla CEO Elon Musk boasted on X that “Teslas are the safest cars on the road, most people don’t know that.”
The EV company echoed this claim in its 2024 Vehicle Safety Report, contending that its vehicles are “engineered to be the safest cars on the road.”
Given Tesla’s dominance in the electric vehicle (EV) market and its role in shifting the auto industry toward electrification, understanding the accuracy of these claims is crucial for consumers.
Fatality Rates
A report published in 2024 by iSeeCars—an automotive research website that analyzes data to give car buyers “helpful insights and guidance”—notably highlights that Telsa “has the highest fatal accident rate by brand, followed by Kia, Buick, Dodge, and Hyundai.”
“Teslas are the safest cars on the road, most people don’t know that.”
Elon Musk, 2023
According to iSeeCars, “Tesla has the highest fatal accident rate of all car brands.” The automotive research website’s investigation analyzed 2018-2022 fatality data from the U.S. Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).
Karl Brauer, iSeeCars executive analyst, cautioned that these stats do not mean the cars are unsafe for their occupants.
“Most of these vehicles received excellent safety ratings,” Brauer told Jalopnik, a news and opinion website about cars.
“The models on this list likely reflect a combination of driver behaviour and driving conditions, leading to increased crashes and fatalities,” added Brauer.
Autopilot comes standard on all Teslas. It is a form of advanced cruise control that limits drivers’ workload by maintaining speed and navigating natural bends on highways. Full self-driving, however, is optional software that uses all-direction cameras to recognize stop signs and traffic lights and maneuver around streets and corners.
FSD is an option in the 2016-2024 Tesla Models S and Model X vehicles, the 2017-2024 Model 3 and the 2020-2024 Model Y in the 2023-2024 Cybertruck.
Crashes with Autopilot and FSD sparked an investigation by a U.S. safety investigator last year.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), which probes safety defects in motor vehicles, examined Tesla’s full-service driving software for the Autopilot System. The investigation focuses on an estimated 2.4 million vehicles.
The safety regulator’s engineering analysis found that the “FSD Beta system may allow the vehicle to act unsafe around intersections, such as travelling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution.”
A 2018 Associated Press fact-check about Teslas’s safety claims concluded that the EV company’s “safety claims aren’t quite right.”
Tesla’s North American media relations team did not respond to three requests to comment on this fact-checking report.
The Canadian experience
In an email to the Calgary Journal, Transport Canada said six defect investigations involving Tesla vehicles are underway, including a special investigation into the vehicle’s Autopilot and FSD.
Flavio Neinow, a communication advisor with Transport Canada, told the Calgary Journal in an email that the department is also investigating defect issues related to phantom braking, heating failures, driver inverter failures, brake line corrosion, and horn issues.
Calgary’s Justin Frick, who owns a 2022 Tesla Y Performance Model. It is his opinion that FSD does not work well in Alberta. He had access to the advanced driving feature during a trial last May.
Based on his experience in Alberta, Frick calls FSD “clunky,” “unreliable,” and even “terrifying.”
“Sometimes it will signal to change lanes on a multilane highway, but then will stop halfway through the lane change and just drive down the dotted line,” said Frick. “I would be coming up to an intersection and turning right, and it would start turning directly into the car parked beside me.”
Other EV safety concerns
Salim Dayekh, a Calgary service technician who services all types of vehicles, says Teslas—like all automobiles—have safety advantages and disadvantages.
He worries about EV batteries catching fire while charging.
“Battery thermal runaway can cause fires that burn hotter, last longer, and reignite even after initial extinguishment… making EV fires significantly more hazardous than conventional fuel fires,” wrote Dayekh in an email interview with the Calgary Journal.
According to Tesla, charging one of its vehicles at a Supercharger can take 30 minutes.
In Calgary, there are only three available Supercharging stations.
This likely increases the need for Tesla owners to use at-home charging stations, bringing with it the potential for fires.
Dayekh explains that home charging stations present the risk of overloading circuits and causing electrical fires, as well as a higher possibility of electrocution and overheating.
Multiple instances of property damage by EV battery fires have been reported, requiring fire crews to respond.
In recent weeks, two reports of home fires in the U.S. were caused by Tesla vehicles—one in Maryland and the other in Illinois.
A news report about the fire in Illinois quotes eyewitnesses as saying firefighters put out the fire for several hours.
Alberta’s colder temperatures bring another potential risk for EVs.
“If you’re driving off road or taking a road trip, especially in the winter, you need a gas vehicle—there’s no way around it.”
Justin Frick, Calgary Tesla owner
Frick’s first-hand experience with his electric vehicle raised questions about its reliability in freezing weather.
“The issue is that when it’s cold, your range is cut by about half,” said Frick about his experience with his EV. “If you’re driving off-road or taking a road trip, especially in the winter, you need a gas vehicle—there’s no way around it.”
Tesla’s crash test ratings
All things considered, Tesla vehicles perform well in controlled crash tests.
The Virginia-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety–an independent, nonprofit scientific and educational organization–awarded the Tesla Model 3 from 2020 to 2023 and the Tesla Model Y in 2024 as its Top Safety Pick.
Further, all NHTSA crash test ratings for Tesla vehicles consistently rank five stars for occupant protection and rollover resistance.
“The car feels solid. I don’t think I could roll my car if I tried to,” said Frick.
“Pretty much any new car is MUCH safer than an average (12-year old) car.”
Phil Koopman, auto expert
Tesla’s design choices, such as a low center of gravity due to battery placement and structural integrity, contribute to strong safety performance in controlled crash tests.
Additionally, independent analysts and drivers have praised Tesla’s active safety features, including collision avoidance and emergency braking.
“It has a fantastic forward collision warning, and you can change it to be as sensitive as you want,” said Frick.
However, an analysis by Phil Koopman, an internationally recognized automotive expert, suggests that five-star crash test ratings are standard and not to be bragged about. “The reality is,” writes Koopman, “that pretty much any new car is MUCH safer than an average (12-year old) car.”
A January 2025 U.S. government report rated the controversial Tesla Cybertruck five stars for safety.
But the rigid steel design of Tesla’s Cybertruck has raised safety concerns.
“A vehicle of this size, power and huge weight will be lethal to pedestrians and cyclists in a collision,” the Brussels-based nonprofit European Transport Safety Council told Reuters in 2023.
In 2024, Tesla recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks because of accelerator pedal crash concerns.
In the United Kingdom, Tesla’s Cybertruck has not yet passed that country’s road safety tests.
Final verdict
Tesla vehicles are among the safest in controlled testing environments. Drivers have a good chance of surviving a crash.
Yet, evidence suggests there is a more complicated story about the electric vehicle’s overall safety than Tesla and Musk’s claims about the “safest cars on the road.”
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