Tesla Robotaxi: Is Safety Derailing?

In a month, five new accidents reignite the debate on the reliability of Tesla’s autonomous vehicles in Austin.

The latest official data published by Tesla regarding its autonomous vehicle service “Robotaxi” revives questions about the safety of automated driving. According to reports submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), five additional incidents have been recorded within a single month, bringing the total number of accidents to fourteen since the commercial launch of the service in June 2025 in the city of Austin.

These new events exclusively involve Model Y electric SUVs operating with the autonomous driving system activated. The available information mentions a moderate-speed collision with a fixed object, a bump with a bus while the vehicle was stationary, contact with a heavy truck at a very slow speed, as well as two reverse maneuvers that ended against obstacles. As with previous reports, the specific descriptions of the circumstances remain largely concealed for “commercial confidentiality,” a practice frequently criticized by observers in the automotive and autonomous mobility sectors.

It’s both little and a lot at the same time

Another point attracting attention is the discreet revision of a file from July 2025. Initially classified as mere property damage, the incident was eventually updated several months later to include minor hospitalization. This late modification fuels debates on the transparency of accident reporting involving Tesla’s autonomous vehicles and, more broadly, on the communication of automakers engaged in the race for integrated artificial intelligence.

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• 09/02/2026 8:08

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Extrapolating the mileage reported at the end of 2025, the incident rate would correspond to about one accident for every 100,000 kilometers traveled. Few humans can boast such a ratio, that’s for sure. But not all humans operate exclusively in an urban environment within a defined small area! By comparison, Waymo, another major player in autonomous vehicles, claims to have over one hundred fifty million kilometers traveled without a safety driver, with accident statistics presented as being below the human average. But no specific data! These discrepancies and inaccuracies highlight the difficulty in objectively assessing the actual performance of robotaxi fleets still in the experimentation and large-scale deployment phase.

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