Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving remote operators

A Tesla Robotaxis has crashed at least twice since July 2025 while the remote operator was driving the vehicles remotely, according to newly unredacted information filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Both accidents occurred in Austin, Texas, and occurred at low speeds. In each case, there was a safety monitor behind the wheel and there were no passengers on board.

The new information comes just a few months after Tesla told lawmakers that it allows remote operators to drive one of the company’s vehicles as long as it stays under 10 miles per hour. “This capability enables Tesla to immediately move a vehicle that may be in a dangerous situation, thus alleviating the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to manually retrieve the vehicle,” the company said at the time.

Tesla, like other companies working on self-driving vehicle technology, is required to provide detailed information about any accidents to the NHTSA. Unlike most of those other companies, Tesla has always redacted its fault descriptions, claiming it to be confidential business information.

It’s not clear why, but Tesla changed course this week, and the latest version of data released by the NHTSA now provides a narrative description of all 17 incidents Tesla has recorded since last year through its emerging Robotaxi network.

In July 2025, shortly after Tesla first rolled out the network in Austin, the company’s Automated Driving System (ADS) apparently had trouble moving forward while parked on a street. The Safety Monitor requested assistance from Tesla’s Remote Assist team, and the Remote Operator “took control of the vehicle and gradually accelerated the vehicle and shifted the Tesla ADS system left toward the left side of the street.”

The operator then drove the remote “up the sidewalk and connected with a metal fence.”

A similar sequence occurred in January 2026. The Tesla ADS system was driving the car directly down the street, when a safety monitor requested “backup to assist with vehicle navigation.”

“The remote operator took control of the vehicle when the ADS system was turned off and moved straight down the street. The Tesla vehicle made contact with a temporary barrier at the construction site at approximately 9 mph, scraping the left front fender and tire,” according to data provided to NHTSA.

Similar to other self-driving car companies like Waymo, most of the other recent unresolved incidents involve Tesla Robotaxi crashes inside Instead of causing malfunctions.

But at least two of them involve a Tesla Robotaxi car clipping its mirrors onto other vehicles. In one crash, from September 2025, the Tesla ADS system was unable to avoid a collision with a dog running across the street. (Tesla reported that 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 struck a metal chain. (NHTSA recently closed an investigation into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software’s occasional tendency to collide with parking poles, chains, and gates. Waymo also issued a recall last year related to a similar issue.)

While other taxi companies like Waymo and Zoox have reported more accidents than Tesla, Elon Musk’s company operates at a fraction of the size. Details revealed this week in newly unredacted data may help explain why Tesla has been scaling up its emerging self-driving network of ride-hailing services so slowly. Musk himself admitted last month that “making sure things are completely secure” is the biggest factor limiting Tesla’s expansion of the network, saying the company is “very cautious.”