The Tesla Robotaxis has crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a teleoperator was driving the cars remotely, according to newly updated data submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Both accidents occurred in Austin, Texas and occurred at low speeds. In each case, there was a security monitor behind the wheel and no passengers were on board.
The new information comes months after Tesla told lawmakers it was allowing telecommuters to drive one of the company’s vehicles as long as they stayed under 10 miles per hour. “This capability enables Tesla to quickly move a vehicle that may be in an accident, thereby reducing the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to manually return the vehicle,” the company said at the time.
Tesla, like other companies working on autonomous vehicle technology, is required to submit detailed information about any crash to NHTSA. Unlike most of those companies, however, Tesla has always redacted the explanations for its crash, saying it was confidential business information.
It’s not clear why, but Tesla changed course this week, and the latest version of the data released by NHTSA now provides a narrative explanation of all 17 crashes Tesla has recorded since last year with its fledgling Robotaxi network.
In July 2025, shortly after Tesla began using the network in Austin, the company’s automated driving system (ADS) apparently had trouble moving forward while stationary on the road. The security guard requested help from Tesla’s remote assistance team, and the teleoperator “took control of the vehicle and gradually increased the speed of the vehicle and turned the Tesla ADS to the left toward the left side of the road.”
The operator then drove “to the curb and touched the wire.”
A similar sequence was played in January 2026. The Tesla ADS was driving the car straight down the road, when the guard “requested support to help navigate the car.”
“The teleoperator took control of the vehicle while ADS was disabled and continued onto the roadway. The Tesla vehicle contacted a temporary closed field. construction site at approximately 9MPH, scraping the fender and front left wheel,” according to data submitted to NHTSA.
Similar to other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo, most of the other accidents that have recently been fixed include crashes of Tesla Robotaxi vehicles. in the middle instead of causing a crash.
But at least two of them involve the Tesla Robotaxi clipping its mirrors into other cars. In one accident, from September 2025, the Tesla ADS could not avoid hitting a dog that ran on the road. (Tesla reported that the dog managed to escape.)
In another accident in September 2025, a Tesla Robotaxi made an unprotected left turn into a parking lot and ran into a chain link. (NHTSA recently closed an investigation into the occasional tendency of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software to crash into parking lot bollards, chains, and gates. Waymo also issued a recall last year related to a similar problem.)
While other robotaxi companies like Waymo and Zoox have reported more crashes than Tesla, Elon Musk’s company operates on a fraction of the scale. Details revealed this week in newly converted data may help explain why Tesla is growing its autonomous ride-hailing network so slowly. Musk himself admitted last month that “making sure things are completely safe” is a major factor limiting Tesla from expanding the network, saying the company is “very cautious.”
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