"For more than a year, Tesla has shielded details about its robotaxi crashes from public view. Now, the company has published new details in a federal database about 17 incidents, which took place between July 2025 and March 2026. In at least two of them, Tesla's human employees appear to have played a hand in the crashes by remotely driving the otherwise autonomous cars into objects on the street."
"In both crashes, which happened in Austin, "safety monitors" were in the vehicles' passenger seats to oversee the still-fledgling self-driving tech, and no passengers were riding in the cars. Both crashes occurred at speeds below 10 miles per hour. The new details were first reported by TechCrunch."
"In one incident, which took place in July 2025, the safety monitor experienced "minor" injuries after a remote worker drove the Tesla up a curb and into a metal fence at 8 mph. The monitor, who had requested help from Tesla's remote driving team after the car stopped on the side of a street and wouldn't move forward, was not hospitalized, Tesla reported."
"The other incident, in January 2026, happened after a safety monitor requested navigation help from the remote team. The remote driver took control and drove the car straight into a temporary construction barricade at 9 mph. The crash left the robotaxi's front left fender and tire scraped up, but Tesla didn't report any injuries."
Tesla published federal database details covering 17 robotaxi crash incidents occurring between July 2025 and March 2026. At least two incidents in Austin involved Tesla human employees remotely driving autonomous cars into street objects. In both cases, safety monitors sat in the passenger seats while no passengers were present. The crashes occurred at speeds below 10 miles per hour. In July 2025, a remote worker drove a Tesla up a curb into a metal fence at 8 mph, causing minor injuries to the safety monitor. In January 2026, a remote worker drove the car into a temporary construction barricade at 9 mph, scraping the front left fender and tire, with no injuries reported. Tesla did not provide a public comment response.
Read at WIRED
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]