Tesla Robotaxis Involved in Two Crashes With Teleoperators

Tesla Robotaxis have crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a teleoperator was remotely driving the vehicles, according to newly unredacted information submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Both crashes happened in Austin, Texas, and occurred at low speeds.

In each case, there was a safety monitor behind the wheel and no passengers were onboard. The reports provide narrative descriptions for all 17 crashes recorded with the Robotaxi network since last year. The new information comes months after the company told lawmakers that it allows remote operators to pilot vehicles as long as they stay under 10 miles per hour.

"This capability enables Tesla to promptly move a vehicle that may be in a compromising position, thereby mitigating the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to manually recover the vehicle," the company said at the time.

2025, shortly after operations began in Austin, the automated driving system had trouble moving forward while stopped on a street. The safety monitor requested help from the remote assistance team. A teleoperator took over vehicle control, gradually increased speed, turned left toward the left side of the street, drove up the curb and made contact with a metal fence.

A similar sequence occurred in January 2026. The automated driving system was driving straight on a street when the safety monitor requested support. The teleoperator took over when the system was stopped, proceeded straight and made contact with a temporary barricade at a construction site at approximately 9 mph, scraping the front-left fender and tire.

The company is required to submit detailed crash information to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, like other firms developing autonomous vehicle technology. The company had previously redacted the descriptions of its crashes, citing confidential business information.

This week the latest version of the data released by the agency included narrative descriptions for the first time. Most of the other newly unredacted crashes involve the Robotaxi vehicles being struck by other road users rather than causing crashes.

At least two involve the vehicles clipping mirrors on other vehicles. In one incident from September 2025, the automated driving system was unable to avoid a dog that ran into the street. The company reported the dog was able to run away. In another September 2025 crash, a Robotaxi made an unprotected left turn into a parking lot and ran into a metal chain.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently closed an investigation into similar tendencies of the company's Full Self-Driving software to contact parking lot bollards, chains and gates. The company is operating its Robotaxi network at a smaller scale than some competitors.

The company has described safety as the main factor limiting faster expansion of the service.