Drivers not paying attention in non-autopilot vehicles is an increasing problem with the prevalence of smart phones. In places where it's illegal to text and drive I don't think you're going to get out of a ticket by telling the police officer "it's okay because Tesla was driving".
I do believe "it's still safer than the average car" because there's not a big tank of explosive - I'm most curious to hear what caused such a massive fire in this crash. But you're talking about the autopilot and it's statistically incorrect to say it's safer than the average car. It's merely safer than a driver alone - this should be no surprise as you'll find that cars with backup cameras and alarms don't hit have as many accidents while in reverse as cars without them.
I do believe "it's still safer than the average car" because there's not a big tank of explosive - I'm most curious to hear what caused such a massive fire in this crash.
How does a Tesla get such good range? There's still a lot of energy in those batteries, and damaging them is far easier to cause a fire than leaking fuel --- the former can self-ignite just from dissipating its own energy into an internal short, while the latter needs an ignition source. In addition, the batteries are under the entire vehicle and thus more likely to be damaged; a fuel tank has a smaller area and is concentrated in one place.
It is extremely rare for fuel tanks to explode in a crash.
I see how that is intuitively true, but it isn't really true in practice. Post crash fires with ICE are unusual, but not extremely rare. Similarly, post-repair car fires (leaky fuel lines) are not as unusual as most people think.
So far, experiential evidence with Tesla seems to be showing a lower than average risk of fires, though the breadth and nature of the battery leads to challenges in managing the fire itself.
All cases that I'm aware of proceeded at a slow enough pace to allow evacuation of the vehicle.
It is the opposite, LiIon/LiPo batteries are inherently dangerous and can cause chemical fire for various reasons (overcharging, undercharging, puncture, high temperature, etc.). These things are monitored/controlled in any modern application in normal usage, but in a crash you have to remember that you are literally few inches away from a massive stored up potential chemical energy. The fire burns very hot, the smoke is toxic and assuming somebody gets to you in time, it can only be extinguished reliably using special dry powder fire extinguishers (Class D)...
I do believe "it's still safer than the average car" because there's not a big tank of explosive - I'm most curious to hear what caused such a massive fire in this crash. But you're talking about the autopilot and it's statistically incorrect to say it's safer than the average car. It's merely safer than a driver alone - this should be no surprise as you'll find that cars with backup cameras and alarms don't hit have as many accidents while in reverse as cars without them.