Tesla Robotaxi Rollout
2025-09-22 19:32:10.596319+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Ars Technica: Three crashes in the first day? Tesla’s robotaxi test in Austin.
Two of the three Tesla crashes involved another car rear-ending the Model Y, and at least one of these crashes was almost certainly not the Tesla's fault. But the third crash saw a Model Y—with the required safety operator on board—collide with a stationary object at low speed, resulting in a minor injury. Templeton also notes that there was a fourth crash that occurred in a parking lot and therefore wasn't reported. Sadly, most of the details in the crash reports have been redacted by Tesla.
Looks like it was written mostly from Brad Templeton at Forbes: Tesla Robotaxi Reports 3 Crashes In Austin On One Day, Hides Details who additionally notes:
During this period, Waymo had many crash reports, Zoox had 7 and May had 2, others had 1. The other companies do not redact the details as Tesla did. Waymo had a famous crash into a lighting pole that might be similar to crash #2 above, but this took place in a vehicle that’s giving 250,000 rides/week and just reported 96 million miles-- their crash rate is actually better than expected. Analysis of the reports for Waymo suggest they are not at fault for the vast majority of their reported crashes. Even one at fault crash, especially an injury crash, in under 7,000 miles is an extremely poor rate. You can’t extrapolate well from a single data point, the strong implication is that Tesla has to get much better – perhaps 300x better, to match Waymo. The presence of the safety driver implies the improvement goal might be much greater than 300x.