Tesla Reveals New Details About Robotaxi Crashes—and the Humans Involved
Key takeaways
- 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.
- 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 other incident, in January 2026, happened after a safety monitor requested navigation help from the remote team.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story 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.