Tesla reveals two Robotaxi accidents involving mobile operators

The Tesla Robotaxis has crashed at least twice since July 2025 when a telematics driver is driving the car remotely, according to a report recently submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The two accidents happened in Austin, Texas and happened at high speed. There were safety lights on both sides of the wheel and no one was on board.

This new feature comes just a few months after Tesla he told the councilors that it allows remote drivers to drive one of the company’s vehicles as long as they stay within 10 kilometers per hour. “This capability enables Tesla to quickly move a potentially disruptive vehicle, thereby reducing the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to recover the vehicle,” the company said at the time.

Tesla, like other companies working on autonomous vehicle technology, is required to report any accidents to the NHTSA. Unlike many other companies, Tesla has always disclosed about its accidents, saying that it was a business secret.

It is not clear why, but Tesla changed this week, and the latest version of the data released by the NHTSA now provides an explanation for all 17 accidents recorded by Tesla since last year with its Robotaxi network.

In July 2025, as soon as Tesla started using the network in Austin, the company’s autonomous driving system (ADS) apparently had trouble moving forward while parked in the street. The safety officer requested assistance from Tesla’s remote assistance team, and the teleoperator “took control of the vehicle and increased the vehicle’s speed and turned the Tesla ADS to the left on the left side of the road.”

Then the operator “went up the side of the road and ran into a metal fence.”

A similar sequence was played out in January 2026. The Tesla ADS was driving the car straight down the road, when the safety officer “asked for help to help the car steer.”

“The teleoperator took control of the car when the ADS was stopped and continued straight on the road. The Tesla car connected to the temporary barrier. The construction site at about 9MPH, cutting the left barrier and the tire,” according to the data provided to NHTSA.

Similar to other autonomous companies like Waymo, many other undocumented accidents involve Tesla Robotaxi vehicles crashing. to instead of causing an accident.

But at least two of them include the Tesla Robotaxi cutting glass on other cars. In another accident, from September 2025, the Tesla ADS could not avoid hitting a dog that ran into the road. (Tesla said the dog was able to escape.)

In another accident in September 2025, a Tesla Robotaxi made an unprotected left turn into a parking lot and ran into a metal chain. (NHTSA soon closed the investigation in the latest trend of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving program that falls into parking lots, chains, and gates. Waymo also issued a recall last year related to similar problem.)

Although other robotaxi companies such as Waymo and Zoox have reported more accidents than Tesla, Elon Musk’s company is working slowly. Details revealed this week in undisclosed information may help explain why Tesla is slowly expanding its autonomous network. Musk himself he admitted last month that “making sure things are in order” is the main thing preventing Tesla from expanding the network, saying that the company is “very careful.”