Big revelation about Tesla’s robotaxi in US… 14 accidents occurred in 8 months after launch

Washington. Tesla’s Robotaxi Service has made a lot of headlines since its launch in Austin, but now the reports submitted to NHTSA have revealed a shocking thing. A total of 14 accidents have been recorded in the first 8 months of this driverless taxi service, which started in June 2025. All these accidents have happened in Austin, Texas, where Tesla is currently running its robotaxi service. Initially there were vehicles with human safety observers, but from January 2026, some vehicles began operating completely without monitors.

It is noteworthy that Tesla started limited robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025, initially with about a dozen cars running with human safety observers (safety monitors), and gradually expanded the fleet. According to the standing order, the first accident occurred in July, in which the company said there was only property damage. However, in December Tesla filed an additional report for that July crash, adding information that the crash resulted in minor injuries and that some people were hospitalized.

Meanwhile, minor injuries were also recorded in another incident in July. Tesla’s latest report for January 2026 mentions five new incidents that occurred during December and January. One of these incidents, in January, involved a collision between a stopped robotaxi and an Austin city bus. In two other incidents, robotaxis collided with parked objects in parking lots. In January, Tesla began rolling out fully driverless rides without safety monitors in some of its fleet vehicles in Austin, following tests in December. It was not clear whether any of the reported accidents involved unmonitored vehicles.

Information about all incidents involving Tesla is quite limited, and unlike other competitors Tesla heavily redacts details in its reports. Most reports mention only property damage. Let us tell you that Austin is the only city where Tesla is running robotaxi service. The company also started service on the same app in the San Francisco Bay Area last year, but there human drivers are present and it is a service like Uber.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has staked the company’s future more on autonomy and robotics due to the challenges faced in the core business of electric vehicles. Tesla did not say how many robotaxi vehicles it currently has in Austin. In January, Musk said there were a total of 500 rideshare vehicles in Austin and the Bay Area combined.

At the same time, rival company Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, which operates about 2,500 vehicles in Phoenix, San Francisco, Austin, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami and is testing elsewhere, has reported hundreds of incidents since June. That includes about 50 incidents in Austin alone, where it operates about 200 vehicles on the Uber app. Tesla has said it aims to expand to about seven more cities by the middle of the year, but it fell short of its expansion projections late last year. Its operations lag far behind Waymo, which launched driverless ride-hailing service to the general public in the Phoenix area in 2020.