Tesla owners drive 1 billion miles with Autopilot engaged

The total represents 10 percent of the overall mileage driven by Tesla vehicles.

Tesla is celebrating an important milestone as its fleet surpasses one billion miles with Autopilot active.

The company says the tally dates back to 2015, though Autopilot was initially introduced late in 2014 via a partnership with Mobileye.

"That's the distance to the sun x10," the company notes. "That's 40.159 times around the Earth."

A billion miles represents approximately 10 percent of the 10 billion total miles driven by Tesla's full fleet of electric vehicles.

The company recently released a safety report claiming the Autopilot accident rate is seven times lower than the national average. Using vehicle telemetry data, one accident or "crash-like event" occurs every 3.3 million miles with Autopilot engaged. For people driving a Tesla without Autopilot engaged, the rate increases to one incident every 1.92 million miles driven.