The high cost of repairing Tesla vehicles may not be the sole reason why their drivers are paying hefty insurance premiums. According to a recent study by insurance provider LendingTree, Tesla drivers had the highest per capita involvement in accidents in America between November 2022 and November 2023
The study examined data from tens of millions of insurance quotes and revealed that Teslas were involved in 23.54 accidents per 1,000 drivers. This marked the automaker with the highest accident rate, followed by Ram (22.76) and Subaru (20.90).
On the other hand, the brands whose drivers were involved in the fewest crashes were all discontinued: Pontiac (8.41), Mercury (8.96), and Saturn (9.13). Meanwhile, Chrysler (11.07), Cadillac (11.13), and Lincoln (11.69) are the existing brands whose vehicles are driven the most cautiously.
Top 5, Bottom 5 Existing Automakers By Crashes
Read: Tesla Model 3 Ranked Last In German TUV Reliability Report
“A vehicle’s crash rate is just one of the factors insurance companies look at to determine how risky a particular model may be to insure,” says Rob Bhatt, LendingTree insurance expert. “That said, a prior ticket, accident or DUI on your driving record usually has a bigger impact on your rates than your vehicle’s safety record.”
Fortunately for Tesla drivers and their insurance premiums, they didn’t top the list for overall insurance-relevant driving errors. That distinction goes to Ram, which had 32.9 incidents (including crashes, speeding tickets, DUIs, and citations) per 1,000 drivers.
Top 5, Bottom 5 Existing Automakers by Driving Incident
Ram vehicles ranked in the top five in all four incident categories. They led in cases of speeding per 1,000 drivers (4.42). Additionally, they had the second-highest number of DUIs (1.72), the fifth-highest number of citations (8.0), and, unsurprisingly, the second-highest number of accidents (22.76) in the industry.
The brand with the highest rate of DUIs among its drivers was BMW. In fact, its rate of 3.13 per 1,000 drivers far exceeded the rest of the industry and was nearly double Ram’s rate (1.72). Subaru drivers ranked third worst in the industry with a rate of 1.45.
Interestingly, Tesla drivers were relatively well behaved in terms of DUIs, with a rate of 1.02 per 1,000 drivers, placing them in the 20th position on the list. It remains unclear what precisely is contributing to the automaker’s high accident rate, but high power and other factors may be to blame.