Tesla Robotaxi had 3 more crashes, now 7 total

Tesla reported three more accidents involving its robotaxis in Austin, Texas – now taking the total to 7 despite low mileage and in-car observers preventing more accidents.

Since the launch of the ‘robotaxis’ service in Austin, Texas, where Tesla moved the supervisor from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, it is now required to report accidents to NHTSA.

In its first month of operation in July, Tesla reported three accidents with its robotaxi service.

The automaker reported another robotaxi accident last month, and it was interesting because it coincided with Tesla’s announcement that the robotaxi fleet had traveled 250,000 miles from its launch in late June to early November.

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This revealed Tesla’s current robotaxi accident rate, which is about 2 times higher than Waymo’s, despite in-car observers who prevent an unknown number of accidents.

Now, Tesla has reported to NHTSA three more incidents that happened with its robotaxi fleet in Austin in September:

Unlike other companies that report to NHTSA, Tesla abuses the right to modify data reported through the system. The automaker revises the “narrative” for each reported accident, preventing the public from knowing how the accidents happened and who is responsible.

Based on the limited information in Tesla’s reports, we know that one of the new accidents involved a robotaxi that collided with a car that was backing up, the second accident involved a cyclist, and the last accident involved an unidentified animal.

Electrek’s Tech

My favorite thing about reporting on them are the messages from Tesla fans who say: You don’t know how many of those robotaxis are responsible for?

It’s funny because I agree, but whose fault is it? Tesla can act like every other company and report narratives.

Waymo does this, and it is clear that it is not responsible for the many accidents they are involved in. I’m sure this is the case with some of the Tesla robotaxi accidents.

However, Waymo has hundreds of millions of rider-only autonomous miles, and Tesla has a few hundred thousand autonomous miles, all with a supervisor on board, a finger on a killswitch, ready to prevent further accidents. Who knows how many more Tesla accidents would have occurred without them?

I would expect some since humans generally get into an accident every 700,000 miles, whether they were at fault or not. Tesla probably has 7 at ~300,000 miles, which should be of concern to anyone, whether robotaxis were responsible or not.