Tesla Robotaxis have crashed at the very least twice since July 2025 whereas a teleoperator was remotely driving the autos, in line with newly unredacted data submitted to the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA).
Each crashes occurred in Austin, Texas and occurred at low speeds. In every case, there was a security monitor behind the wheel and no passengers had been onboard.
The brand new data comes just some months after Tesla told lawmakers that it permits distant operators to pilot one of many firm’s autos so long as they keep below 10 miles per hour. “This functionality allows Tesla to promptly transfer a car which may be in a compromising place, thereby mitigating the necessity to await a primary responder or Tesla area consultant to manually get well the car,” the corporate mentioned on the time.
Tesla, like different firms engaged on autonomous car know-how, is required to submit detailed details about any crashes to NHTSA. In contrast to most of these different firms, although, Tesla had all the time redacted the descriptions of its crashes, claiming they had been confidential enterprise data.
It’s not clear why, however Tesla modified course this week, and the newest model of the information launched by NHTSA now offers a story description for all 17 crashes Tesla has recorded since final yr with its nascent Robotaxi community.
In July 2025, shortly after Tesla first began working the community in Austin, the corporate’s automated driving system (ADS) apparently had bother shifting ahead whereas stopped on a road. The protection monitor requested assist from Tesla’s distant help staff, and a teleoperator “took over car management and steadily elevated car pace and turned the Tesla ADS left towards the left aspect of the road.”
The teleoperator then drove “up the curb and made contact with a steel fence.”
An identical sequence performed out in January 2026. The Tesla ADS was driving the car straight on a road, when the protection monitor “requested assist to help with car navigation.”
“The teleoperator took over car management when the ADS was stopped and proceeded straight on the road. The Tesla car made contact with a brief barricade fora. building web site at roughly 9MPH, scraping the front-left fender and tire,” in line with the information submitted to NHTSA.
Much like different autonomous car firms like Waymo, many of the different newly unredacted crashes contain Tesla Robotaxi autos being crashed into as an alternative of inflicting crashes.
However at the very least two of them contain a Tesla Robotaxi clipping its mirrors on different autos. In a single crash, from September 2025, the Tesla ADS was unable to keep away from hitting a canine that bumped into the road. (Tesla reported the canine was capable of run away.)
In one other September 2025 crash, a Tesla Robotaxi made an unprotected left flip right into a parking zone and ran right into a steel chain. (NHTSA not too long ago closed an investigation into the occasional tendency of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software program to crash into parking zone bollards, chains, and gates. Waymo additionally issued a recall final yr associated to a similar problem.)
Whereas different robotaxi firms like Waymo and Zoox have reported extra crashes than Tesla, Elon Musk’s firm is working at a fraction of the size. The main points that had been revealed this week within the newly un-redacted knowledge could assist clarify why Tesla is scaling up its nascent autonomous ride-hailing community so slowly. Musk himself admitted last month that “ensuring issues are utterly secure” is the most important limiting issue to Tesla increasing the community, saying the corporate is being “very cautious.”
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