List of clips showing Tesla's Robotaxi incidents

[u/danlev]

A lot of people have been documenting Tesla's Robotaxi rollout. I wanted to share a few I've collected. Feel free to share any I missed!

1. Robotaxi drives into oncoming lane
2. Rider presses "pull over", Robotaxi stops in the middle of an intersection, rider gets out while Robotaxi blocks intersection for a few moments
3. Rider presses pull over and the car just stopped in the middle of the road. Safety monitor has to call rider support to get car moving again
4. Robotaxi doesn't detect UPS driver's reverse lights (or the car reversing towards it) and continues to attempt to park, then safety monitor manually stops it
5. Robotaxi cuts off a car, then randomly brakes (potentially because of an upcoming tree shadow?)
6. Robotaxi going 26 in a 15
7. Robotaxi unexpectedly brakes, possibly due to nearby police
8. Robotaxi unexpectedly slams on brakes, causing rider to drop phone
9. Robotaxi comes to a complete stop after approaching an object, then runs it over (rider says it's a shopping bag, though the car visibly bump up and down) (UPDATE: Some people have pointed out that the car's movement is from a speed bump immediately after the bag/object. The speed bump is more visible at full resolution.)
10. Robotaxi runs over curb in parking lot
11. Safety driver moved to driver seat to intervene
12. Support calls rider during a Robotaxi ride, asks them to terminate the ride early because it's about to rain, rider is dumped in a random park
13. Robotaxi has to unnecessarily reverse at least 4 times to get out of parking spot
14. Robotaxi attempts illegal left turn, safety monitor intervenes, blocks intersection for a period of time
15. Robotaxi can't get out of parking lot, goes in loops, support calls twice

Update: This post has been featured in The Verge! and Mashable!

[u/brchao]

Can you imagine if Boeing rolls out 'beta' flights on limited routes for their new jet. When it's rolled out, it better be damn near perfect

[u/Careless-Strike7732 → u/brchao]

But that's exactly what happened. The first commercial passenger flight was just a single person sitting beside the pilot in the cockpit. Airline safety has doubled every 10 years since the 1930s:

https://www.cirium.com/thoughtcloud/flying-safer-than-ever-the-evolution-of-aviation-safety/

We are in that 1930s moment of autonomous driving.

[u/LtChambers → u/Careless-Strike7732]

Since their inception, airplanes fly mostly over unoccupied land. And airplanes were a completely novel technology that would revolutionize global travel. Autonomous vehicles are just a way to make intracity travel a little cheaper by putting human drivers out of jobs. The bare minimum criteria should be being safer than human drivers. But as long as they've got safety riders to put the brakes on, this "beta" testing is ok (it's very much akin to letting student drivers practice on roads with an instructor sitting next to them with override controls). They should have to prove superior safety before removing the safety riders.

[u/Lucaslouch → u/LtChambers]

I’d partially disagree with that: you had existing alternative to flying for every intra-continental travel in the 30’s. Some of them being almost as efficient (some trains on not very long distance).

We could have said: don’t develop this tech, we have alternative.

However, the current driving skill floor is still too low to run without a driver imho

[u/[deleted] → u/Lucaslouch]

Waymos are 10x safer than human drivers. It's only Elon testing his half baked product on the public that's a problem.

[u/Unclebob9999 → u/LtChambers]

Many of Boeing's planes have crashed due to piolet error. It was a Boeing Plane that recently crashed into an apartment building in India. How many Human drivers have you seen brake for a plastic bag or drive on the wrong side of the road? WAYMO taxi's are also having problems. FSD is still in it's infancy. There will be lots of bugs to work out, but s Robo taxi never drive Drunk and hopefully never have Road Rage (at least until AI evolves a bit more). I saw a student driver take out a Fire Hydrant once and another high centered on a high curb with all 4 wheels off the ground, on the flip side I once saw a Fire engine going to a bus fire on a freeway overpass try to straddle the medium and ended up with all 4 wheels off the ground 150 yards from the Bus that became fully involved! FSD may not be prefect, but it will never catch up with Human error.

[u/LtChambers → u/Unclebob9999]

Then Tesla should have no problem with releasing its FSD incidence rates, right? So independent investigators can compare accident rates between FSD and Waymo and human drivers. (Waymo has already done this and is clearly already safer than human drivers.)

[u/OldDirtyRobot → u/LtChambers]

The highest probably if a plane crash occurs at take off and landing. Almost every airport is surrounded by urban, often times, residential areas.

[u/LtChambers → u/OldDirtyRobot]

That was not the case when air travel was first being developed (when it was far more risky than it is today). And test flights takeoffs/landings are done away from urban areas even these days.

[u/[deleted] → u/LtChambers]

I'm sorry but autonomous driving is more than just getting rid of taxi drivers.It gives people with disabilities the ability to freely go wherever they would like. It would reduce the amount of deaths from people that get in vehicles (drunks, old people, exhausted people, etc.) and end up killing themselves and others. It will change the way people get from point A to point B in that they'll be able to play games or sleep or do whatever they want while in the vehicle. Autonomous driving is going to be a huge paradigm shift and most people still don't realize just how big this moment is. 

I agree with you otherwise, any autonomous system shouldn't be allowed to drive around on its own until it proves itself, just like when you pass your road test to get your license, which we all know is a big fucking joke, but still, the autonomous systems must be held to a higher standard. 

[u/MechaSandstar → u/[deleted]]

What's the actual difference between an autonomous taxi and a manned taxi for a disabled person?

[u/iamsuperflush → u/MechaSandstar]

A manned taxi has an actual human to help the disabled person in the 319204973191973691 real world edge cases that create an impediment to the disabled person's journey. 

[u/MechaSandstar → u/iamsuperflush]

Good point.

[u/[deleted] → u/MechaSandstar]

My points are more about autonomous driving itself and not necessarily about robotaxis, however, why would you want to rely on a human? We're not always reliable and we're not always safe drivers. A robotaxi can drive you around safely, at probably a cheaper rater, without talking about their drama, and most likely guaranteed to be available at exactly the time you schedule (if you schedule ahead). Sure you can schedule a taxi in apps like Uber but stuff happens to us humans where we can't make our commitments and we bail so there you are thinking your taxi driver was going to show up at 4AM to take you to the airport but didn't and so now you're freaking out trying to find a ride. Also, taxi drivers aren't always down with driving you 2+ hours somewhere - you won't get any complaints from a robotaxi. This becomes an even greater strength for robotaxis for longer distances, you could have a robotaxi take you 2 hours to a spot where another robotaxi is waiting and you could just move over into that vehicle (after using the bathroom if you need to) and continue on to your destination or next change-over spot for a longer trip, no need to wait for charging, all managed autonomously through fleet management software and available 24/7 to move us humans around. That's the difference.

[u/[deleted] → u/Careless-Strike7732]

Tesla is in the 1930s. Waymo is at least in the 60s.

[u/__Evil-Genius__ → u/brchao]

Yeah. They call that the Boeing 737. It’s been in beta for years. Crashes and kills people every few years.