Tesla Robotaxis have crashed no less than two times since July 2025 whilst a teleoperator used to be remotely using the cars, in step with newly unredacted knowledge submitted to the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Protection Management (NHTSA).
Each crashes took place in Austin, Texas, and came about at low speeds. In each and every case, there used to be a security track in the back of the wheel and no passengers have been onboard.
The brand new knowledge comes only some months after Tesla instructed lawmakers that it lets in far off operators to pilot some of the corporate’s cars so long as they keep below 10 miles according to hour. “This capacity permits Tesla to promptly transfer a automobile that can be in a compromising place, thereby mitigating the want to look ahead to a primary responder or Tesla box consultant to manually get well the automobile,” the corporate mentioned on the time.
Tesla, like different firms operating on self reliant automobile generation, is needed to post detailed details about any crashes to the NHTSA. In contrast to maximum of the ones different firms, even though, Tesla had at all times redacted the descriptions of its crashes, claiming they have been confidential industry knowledge.
It’s no longer transparent why, however Tesla modified direction this week, and the most recent model of the information launched via the NHTSA now supplies a story description for all 17 crashes Tesla has recorded since remaining yr with its nascent Robotaxi community.
In July 2025, in a while after Tesla first began running the community in Austin, the corporate’s automatic using gadget (ADS) it appears had hassle shifting ahead whilst stopped on a side road. The protection track asked lend a hand from Tesla’s far off help crew, and a teleoperator “took over automobile regulate and step by step greater automobile velocity and grew to become the Tesla ADS left towards the left facet of the road.”
The teleoperator then drove “up the curb and made touch with a steel fence.”
A equivalent collection performed out in January 2026. The Tesla ADS used to be using the automobile immediately on a side road, when the security track “asked strengthen to help with automobile navigation.”
“The teleoperator took over automobile regulate when the ADS used to be stopped and proceeded immediately in the street. The Tesla automobile made touch with a brief barricade for a building web page at roughly 9MPH, scraping the front-left fender and tire,” in step with the information submitted to the NHTSA.
Very similar to different self reliant automobile firms like Waymo, lots of the different newly unredacted crashes contain Tesla Robotaxi cars being crashed into as an alternative of inflicting crashes.
However no less than two of them contain a Tesla Robotaxi clipping its mirrors on different cars. In a single crash, from September 2025, the Tesla ADS used to be not able to keep away from hitting a canine that bumped into the road. (Tesla reported the canine used to be ready to run away.)
In some other September 2025 crash, a Tesla Robotaxi made an unprotected left become a car park and ran right into a steel chain. (The NHTSA just lately closed an investigation into the occasional tendency of Tesla’s Complete Self-Riding instrument to crash into car parking zone bollards, chains, and gates. Waymo additionally issued a recall remaining yr associated with a equivalent drawback.)
Whilst different robotaxi firms like Waymo and Zoox have reported extra crashes than Tesla, Elon Musk’s corporate is working at a fragment of the size. The main points that have been printed this week within the newly unredacted information would possibly lend a hand give an explanation for why Tesla is scaling up its nascent self reliant ride-hailing community so slowly. Musk himself admitted remaining month that “ensuring issues are totally secure” is the most important proscribing issue to Tesla increasing the community, announcing the corporate is being “very wary.”
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