Tesla's Robotaxi Remote Drivers Keep Crashing Into Things

Both new crashes occurred in August and surfaced in NHTSA's September publication of Standing General Order data. Tesla has filed 36 unique "Robotaxi" incident reports in all, up from 22 as of July.

In Dallas (report 13781-16678), a Model Y had come to a stop on a residential street, boxed in by a concrete mixer truck on its right side and a parked SUV on its left. "The remote support operator remotely took control and while moving forward, the vehicle made contact with the SUV at approximately 0.40MPH," Tesla wrote. No passengers were aboard.

A second Austin filing (report 13781-16679) describes how a remote operator "was in control" of a Model Y as it traveled straight down an alley flanked by a utility pole and a dumpster. The car struck the dumpster at roughly 1 mph, again with no passengers present, according to Tesla.

Both incidents, Tesla's reports state, involved property damage alone, both occurred at walking speed, and both carry the company's structured entry for Driver/Operator Type: "Remote (Commercial / Test)." That is the same field Tesla first applied to the Houston tree-stump crash in May. Of the five crashes, three are now formally logged as remote operation.

The remaining two came to light only after Tesla removed redactions from its crash narratives in May. In July 2025 in Austin, a safety monitor was unable to get the car moving, after which a teleoperator assumed control, sped up, turned left, and drove the vehicle onto a curb and into a metal fence at 8 mph, per Tesla's narrative. That January, again in Austin, a teleoperator stepped in for navigation assistance and drove the car into a construction barricade at 9 mph.

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