New unredacted data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that at least two Tesla robotaxi accidents occurred since July 2025 when the vehicles were being driven remotely by teleoperators. techcrunch Report. All self-driving car companies are required to report accidents to NHTSA, but up until this point Tesla has asked regulators to redact parts of its data to protect confidential business information.
Both crashes occurred in Austin, Texas, where Tesla first began offering robotaxi rides in June 2025, and both occurred while a safety monitor was behind the wheel and no passengers were onboard. In an accident in July 2025, techcrunch writes, After a security monitor requested assistance, a remote operator took over, increased the robotaxi’s speed and then took it “overhead and made contact with a metal fence.” In another from January 2026, a remote operator assumed control and “made contact with a makeshift barricade heading to a construction site at approximately 9 MPH.”
Tesla shared with lawmakers for the first time that it plans to allow remote operators to drive its robotaxis in March 2025. While other autonomous driving services rely on remote monitoring, those remote workers are usually consulting the driving software, not driving the car itself. Not all Tesla accidents involve teleoperators. techcrunch Two accidents were observed where Tesla robotaxis accidentally clipped the windshields of other vehicles. In a separate example, a robotaxi was unable to avoid colliding with a dog running across the road. Thankfully, the dog survived.
based on recent reuters According to reports, robotaxi services are also struggling to recover from long wait times. “A reporter using the service in Dallas on a recent Monday afternoon spent about two hours getting from the campus of Southern Methodist University to Dallas City Hall, about 5 miles (8.05 km) south on a major freeway, usually a 20-minute drive.” reuters Writes. Reporters also noted several instances where robotaxis would drop off riders up to 15 minutes away from their destination, despite their desired drop-off point being in Tesla’s coverage area.
Tesla is not unique in dealing with crashes and software problems. Waymo has or is actively working with both. But the continuing problems show that Tesla has a long way to go before it can operate on the scale of its competitors.
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