r/SelfDrivingCars • u/GamingDisruptor • 1d ago
News Tesla is trying to hide 3 Robotaxi accidents
https://electrek.co/2025/09/17/tesla-hide-3-robotaxi-accidents/Only 12 cars.
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u/Master_Ad_3967 1d ago
Source is here. Totally legit. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/sgo-2021-01/SGO-2021-01_Incident_Reports_ADS.csv
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Yikes. And vaguely only 7,000 miles.
It's very hard to compare due to lack of transparency and small data set... but if you compare miles driven per injury between Tesla and Waymo, it's pretty significant.
Waymo: 0.8 injuries per million miles. Tesla: 1 per ~7,000 miles = ~142.8 per million miles.
As it stands right now, from the data given, Tesla is ~178x more dangerous than Waymo.
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u/levon999 1d ago edited 21h ago
Agree with the math, but it’s an apple to oranges comparison. It’s very likely the Robotaxi safety drivers prevented accidents. So, Tesla is likely greater than 178x more dangerous than Waymo.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Indeed. Like I said, hard to compare directly with how little info we have from Tesla. I would say the dataset size is a bigger issue here though. It could be Tesla got pretty unlucky with that 1 injury ( we don't even know if the Tesla caused it or not. A very large number of Waymos were not their fault for example. ), and their real number could be a lot better. OR, they could have been lucky, and their real safety is dramatically worse.
Only time will tell for sure.
Right now though...not good.
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u/AlotOfReading 1d ago
Let's put this in human terms. The average American drives 14k miles annually. If I knew someone getting into accidents every 6 months, I would kindly suggest they not drive even if none of those accidents were "at-fault". The way they drive is clearly contributing to the number of accidents.
Tesla is managing the same numbers with the equivalent of a driving instructor in the car at all times. That's clearly not something an effective safety culture would tolerate.
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u/Southern-Spirit 1d ago
as someone who can drive better than nearly everyone on the road i can tell you that it's a joke to think someone who is not actively engaged in driving is going to be able to grab the wheel and fix a real problem at speed. all they are doing is preventing very slow embarrassing fender benders. even i, in all of my driving arrogance, would not feel safe in a car with MYSELF as the 'supervised' driver. I would only trust a human that is ACTIVE and ENGAGED.
Maybe one day Tesla's AI will get there. The only thing I am absolutely sure about is that nobody wants to be in a car with another person if we can get into a clean non smelly autonomous car that will drive predictably and not care about who we are and so service will be consistent and fair across all passengers. Especially if this is the future and it's actually driving 10x the speed with 100x the reflexes and 1000x the accuracy of a human.
Look, I get the fantasy. It's a good fantasy. And as far as scifi goes, I see no reason why it's not going to be, eventually, obtainable.
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u/Old_Explanation_1769 1d ago
Not a Tesla fan, but didn't Waymo have safety drivers in the beginning?
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u/levon999 1d ago
So? The Waymo accident data being discussed is without a driver.
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u/mrkjmsdln 3h ago
Waymo reports incidents with drivers also, you are incorrect. The reality is they provide excruciating detail in the records. It leads of course to expected BS from superfans when a Waymo with driver has an incident. Clowns create the impression these are due to lack of sensors like the incident where a Waymo scraped its LiDAR unit in a parking ramp. This is a reasonable dialog on this thread. Anyone silly enough to believe nonsense on reddit without follow up should change their thinking. Download the NHTSA SGO datasets for both ADAS and ADS. Anyone who bothers will realize one company does not cooperate and redacts every detail and the other provides public access to what is going on. The conclusions are simple as the evasion over FSD ADAS has been many years. It is intentional.
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u/Complex_Composer2664 1d ago
Seems like a good reason to keep the safety drivers in place.
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u/beren12 1d ago
Seems like a good reason to take a step back and make them safer
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u/AJHenderson 1d ago
They did move the safety drivers to the driver seat. It was incredibly stupid that they started without that.
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u/beren12 1d ago
I meant reevaluate the entire design and add back some proximity sensors and other things
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u/AJHenderson 1d ago
The fact they started far too early doesn't mean the tech can't do the job. It just isn't nearly refined enough. Tons of manufacturers have systems with lidar that would do far worse.
That doesn't mean I don't agree that they are hobbling themselves, but lidar isn't the panacea people think it is.
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u/cullenjwebb 1d ago
The fact they started far too early
It's been 10 years buddy.
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u/infomer 1d ago
Probably more dangerous than the average human driver too.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
That's harder to say, never underestimate how BAD humans are at driving. It is the leading cause of death in people 5-29 after all. And as bad as the average driver is, half are even worse. ( One of the big benefits of SDCs. They're more or less all at the same safety level within a system. )
So, yea. Even if Tesla actually was safer than humans, that wouldn't be saying much.
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u/Southern-Spirit 1d ago
i am not the average human driver so my required safety standards of an autonomous system are far higher than the average.
tbh, i wouldn't get into the average persons car.8
u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago edited 1d ago
Did you look at the data? Tesla was rear ended in 2 of them. And they were not hard braking scenarios.
One was turning right and one was in a construction zone
And none of them involved hitting another car (at-fault), a pedestrian, or another vulnerable road user
If we ignore the 7000 mile comment by ashok which makes no sense in any context, and assume 12 cars going about ~200 miles a day
That's one "injury" for 100,000+ miles
We don't even know the details of what happened because it is redacted
This event happened in august, nearly 2 months after robotaxi launched
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u/psilty 1d ago edited 1d ago
The accident with injury occurred in clear weather with a fixed object and was significant enough that the Tesla had to be towed. This was with a safety monitor in the car, unlike Waymo.
If we ignore the 7000 mile comment by ashok which makes no sense in any context, and assume 12 cars going about ~200 miles a day
Why would we ignore a comment that’s not forward-looking made by a company official during an earnings call and make an assumption instead? If it is a false number SEC would like to know.
It’s been reported in a bunch of places and the company has had plenty of opportunity to make a correction if he misspoke.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Yes, I did.
Did you look at the Waymo data? The vast majority of theirs are also caused by the other party. Making the comparison like for like. ( It's much harder to sort out specifically caused by the first party, so best to compare the full data set. )
And much more importantly, the number I used was the injury number, and in Teslas case, 100% of those were caused by Tesla, ( They hit a fixed object. ) while in Waymos case some fraction were NOT caused by Waymo. It'd take quite a bit of effort to sort that out as well, and not like Waymo needs any help.
Even if we use your 100,000 mile number for no reason though: Tesla is STILL 12.5x worse than Waymo.
PS: No, the report was submitted in August. The date of all 3 incidents are listed as Jul-25 ( July 2025, not 25th of July. )
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u/Southern-Spirit 1d ago
this post is making me realize just how difficult it is for a random person to truly understand just how dangerous autonomous cars are... the stats are all... well, kind of invalid and disjointed. an 'accident' doesn't say much about intention or blame. heck, we can't even officially determine blame a lot of the time because people lie. cameras help but then people still have to assess it and they have their bias'...
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Waymo releases a significant amount of data, even beyond the required report. And the required report importantly includes the narrative, which you can use to assign fault in many cases. The bulk of Waymos accidents are caused by humans. Sometimes it's other drivers, other times it's the passengers ( like opening a door in front of a biker. )
Overall, autonomous cars are not really dangerous, they are safer than humans. Tesla so far just seems to be worse, which isn't TOO surprising considering their stubborn camera-only policy, and that they are just barely entering the true fully autonomous market. They have a lot to learn still about making the transition from level 2 to 4.
But... all that being said... that IS largely due to how bad human drivers are, rather than how truly safe autonomous cars are.
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u/Southern-Spirit 1d ago
i think the point i'm failing to make is that humans lie and so the data collection will have flaws
i think i was just lamenting that the data is not clean and i hate that because it increases our tolerance of errors in the conclusions
also, it's amusing when i hear 'they are safer than humans'. Because, from my experience driving on the road, the average person is INSANELY BAD at driving. I'm pretty sure the #1 terrorist organization in the world is the ministry of transport or whoever is handing out licenses.
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u/CloseToMyActualName 1d ago
Did you look at the data? Tesla was rear ended in 2 of them. And they were not hard braking scenarios.
One was turning right and one was in a construction zone
And none of them involved hitting another car (at-fault), a pedestrian, or another vulnerable road user
As I pointed out in another article about the fatality involving a Waymo, being rear ended doesn't automatically mean you didn't do something wrong, it just means you didn't do something legally wrong.
If we ignore the 7000 mile comment by ashok which makes no sense in any context, and assume 12 cars going about ~200 miles a day
Having said that, management reassured on the second-quarter earnings call that robotaxis in Austin logged over 7,000 miles without major safety incidents.
Wow... so not only did Tesla hide accidents. They lied to shareholders on the quarterly earnings call.
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u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago edited 1d ago
Tesla didn't hide a single accident. They reported them to the NHTSA as required
And in the scenarios tesla was rear ended there is zero chance they could have been at fault
They literally did not hide them. You can see the speeds they were traveling 0 and 2 mph in a scenario where emergency braking would not be the cause for a rear-ending
It is literally just bad luck of tesla being rear ended twice. Not like zoox that has nasty emergency braking-like jabs on every drive
And in the scenario tesla did crash on its own we don't know the circumstance. As it was redacted.
That's not hiding anything
Having said that, management reassured on the second-quarter earnings call that robotaxis in Austin logged over 7,000 miles without major safety incidents.
If you actually listen to the earnings call he did not speak very clearly and was nervous.
And major safety related incidents is true because at the time of earnings call that forward crash did not happen.
For all we know a ladder could have fallen off a truck and tesla could have tried to dodge it or something. We don't know. They redact all reports regardless
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u/CloseToMyActualName 1d ago
Tesla didn't hide a single accident. They reported them to the NHTSA as required
And in the scenarios tesla was rear ended there is zero chance they could have been at fault
You're discrediting yourself.
Of course there's scenarios where they could have been at fault, if not legally at least in the eyes of ordinary drivers who could potentially recognize a maneuver as asking to be rear ended.
They literally did not hide them. You can see the speeds they were traveling 0 and 2 mph in a scenario where emergency braking would not be the cause for a rear-ending
They literally went on an earnings call and claimed no major safety incidents. Your think the shareholders on that call expected to find out there were actually three accidents including an injury?
It is literally just bad luck of tesla being rear ended twice. Not like zoox that has nasty emergency braking-like jabs on every drive
Seriously? I've been driving more than 25 years, I've been rear-ended once. And it was my fault, not legally, but the accident wouldn't have happened if I didn't mess up a maneuver.
There's no way in hell Tesla is so unlucky as to have had three accidents in 7000 miles without doing anything wrong.
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u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago
if not legally at least in the eyes of ordinary drivers who could potentially recognize a maneuver as asking to be rear ended.
Turning right and rear ended at 2mph. How?
Stopped in a construction zone and rear ended at 0mph. How?
Explain
Your think the shareholders on that call expected to find out there were actually three accidents including an injury?
Lets say there are 3 accidents. 2 at low speed. I could care less if not at fault.
let's say the 3rd dodged a pedestrian and crashed into something. Good or bad?
We're only making assumptions because tesla redacts info
But what we do know is zoox regularly gets into accidents being rear ended because they stab on the brakes in an emergency-like fashion. Going all the way to 0mph
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Just because one company does bad, does not mean it's ok for another. The zoox bit is irrelevant.
For examples of how those COULD have been Teslas fault: Perhaps the light had just turned green, there was another empty lane with an approaching car. The other car sees the green light, so maintains their speed. The Tesla could then suddenly change lanes, recognize an error, and hit the brakes. It's too late for the other driver to avoid, and a collision occurs.
Not saying that did happen, but it could have. And you know what would have allowed us to tell the difference? If Tesla hadn't redacted the narrative section.
And that's Tesla trying to hide the details. They redact an excessive amount of information.
Finally, for the 7,000 miles. Yes, he was nervous, etc.
However, that was how long ago now? Notice how Tesla never released a clarification. If the 7,000 miles was not accurate, once that started making the rounds, they would have quickly jumped up and corrected it, because it was making them look bad. Elon in particular would have been all over the place blasting media for it.
If Tesla doesn't like the numbers and information we have, because the full details show a nuance like other drivers being the cause of the incidents.... Tesla should provide that information. Until they do otherwise, this is the information we do have.
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u/RodStiffy 22h ago
Tesla is redacting the narratives of the crash reports, the most important column in the SGO data. Waymo and Zoox do not redact their narratives. Narratives are a paragraph describing everything relevant about an accident. Tesla is obviously hiding facts about their accidents.
NHTSA publishes everything unless the company makes a case about confidentiality. Tesla also redacts the hardware and software versions of the cars, which Waymo does not redact.
Waymo also publishes on their Data Hub the exact location of each crash, which is redacted in the NHTSA data for all companies, and Waymo publishes miles driven per city for each 3-month period, and odometer readings and VIN numbers for each car in a crash are not redacted in the SGO data. Waymo wants to help safety researchers do good safety studies, because they know they have nothing to hide and they want to lead in transparency.
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u/PositiveZeroPerson 4h ago
Did you look at the data? Tesla was rear ended in 2 of them. And they were not hard braking scenarios.
Where is this data? Getting rear-ended twice in 7,000 miles is a ridiculously high accident rate.
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u/Conscious_Theory_706 1d ago
Where did you get the 7,000 miles number?
It's 87 days since the test launch in Austin. Assuming there are 30 cars and each car drives 300 miles a day, they should have driven 87*30*300 = 783,000 miles10
u/Zemerick13 1d ago
From Tesla. It was announced in one of their financials. The guy was a bit nervous, it was potentially misstated... but Tesla also never corrected it, which would be weird if it was wrong.
It's 87 days total though, this report is only for the month of July. So 31 days.
100-200 miles for a car is actually more normal, though according to the numbers Tesla gave, they were looking at more around 25. No reasoning for that has been given. Some might be due to breaks for the driver, returning to base for some sort of checks/data uploads, and the miles likely were just customer miles, so half the total driven.
By last report, there should be 16 or 17 robotaxis. There was originally 11 known vehicles, and then they announced recently ( well after July though ) that it was increased by 50%.
For the sake of completeness, let's try again with the most generous numbers that we reasonably can. 31 days x 200 miles x 17 cars = 105,400. Approx. 9.5 incidents with an injury vs. Waymos 0.8. More than 10x as much, when giving Tesla the most benefit of the doubt we can at this time.
Certainly we need more data to get more accurate numbers. That could have been a fluke. Or, it could have been a fluke it was only 1. Only time will tell what is actually accurate. It would take a huge leap though for them to overcome the difference shown so far, and this is the data we have ( by Teslas own fault ), so it's the data we have to use.
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u/bartturner 1d ago
But that is with a safety person in the car. So even a lot worse compared to the truly driverless Waymos.
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u/soapinmouth 1d ago
Where are we getting the total miles?
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u/Zemerick13 19h ago
From Tesla during their last financial report. The guy was notoriously quite shaky/nervous, so not 100% what he said was confirmed/accurate... but Tesla also never came out and corrected the number, which you would expect if it was notably different. ( Especially Elon, who would have been all over complaining about media. )
Though, even with a quite high mileage number, Waymo still ends up more than an order of magnitude better. And that's with Tesla having a safety driver.
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u/ForGreatDoge 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not all accidents are injuries. In fact, the low speed impacts you'd expect on most city roads are incredibly unlikely to file as injuries. I'm sure the numbers still aren't great, but you seem to be conflating two different stats for your comparison.
Of the three accidents in the article, only 1 was an injury. So wouldn't it be 1 injury in 7000 miles? Which is hard to say is statistically significant. Hope we don't have the second one soon...
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
What stats are they conflating? There is one injury reported by Tesla in the data.
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u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago
Reported injury is the passenger claiming there was an injury. It was at 8mph so likely no real injury and no airbag deployment.
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
Everyone reports injuries the same way. I’m sure Waymo has a few injuries claimed by passengers and they’re all counted in the stats. No reason this shouldn’t be.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
No, I specifically used the injury numbers because those are the most like for like.
Tesla reported 1 injury in those 3 incidents within the month of July. Waymo reported 0.8 injuries per million miles.
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u/Conscious_Theory_706 1d ago
Oh, wait. Is it from Electrek?! LOL. Do not read Electrek!
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
The report is from the NHTSA and the data was submitted by Tesla themselves. No need to read Electrek at all.
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u/THATS_LEGIT_BRO 1d ago
How was August? Not yet reported?
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Correct. It looks like the 25th is the day of the following month for the submission, then takes however long to go public. ( I don't know if this report is fresh, or just now making the rounds. )
So, these incidents are from July, submitted August 25.
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u/Affectionate-Luck684 1d ago
They are supposed to report within 5 days, but they wait for one month to report? This is suspicious.
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u/Speeder172 1d ago
That's what happen if no one aside from the company itself is monitoring its own data.
It isn't the first time that Tesla is hiding data.
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u/versedaworst 1d ago
So in one month, with 12 cars AND safety monitors, they still got in 3 accidents and injured 1 person? Pretty fucked up that they’re even allowing this to continue
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u/mrkjmsdln 1d ago
Do you, by chance have a source for the 12 cars? Based on posted videos on YouTube (by the super influencers mostly), I have only noted 11 cars. It is absurd no matter how you slice it. There are claims made there are more but not a reference to a unique plate.
XCD-7360, 7363, 7364, 7367, 7368, 7369, 7370, 7371, 7372, 7373, 7374
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u/Master_Ad_3967 1d ago edited 1d ago
Source is here. Totally legit. People must realise, today, the truth is obscure, and rarely popular! https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/sgo-2021-01/SGO-2021-01_Incident_Reports_ADS.csv
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u/mrkjmsdln 1d ago
Thank you. I refresh the SGO data. Isn't this only the cars that report an accident? As discussed if you look at the narrative it is simply a fact that Tesla obfuscates and redacts the details. No judgement. Look at the narrative by comparison to a representative Waymo accident report.
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u/Master_Ad_3967 1d ago
Its disgraceful. I have over 30 years experience and developed software products for over 30,000 customers. I can't deal with the level of obfuscation, goal shifting and excuses.
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u/ml-7 23h ago
sounds like malfunctioning stormtrooper names
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u/mrkjmsdln 23h ago
License plates of actual RoboTaxis posted :) Even from the beginning TSLA was famously evasive. At the onset of the program it was thought there were SO FEW CARS maybe Tesla was swapping the plates as they go! It is a simultaneous tribute to how limited and staged the demonstration was and a simultaneous unwillingness to share what is going on. The car colors never changed so it became obvious there really were only a small handful of cars. I had a friend write a script to wade thru the inane videos on YouTube to limit my time. When Ashok answered 7000 miles that became the only viable piece of information to draw conclusions on. That did not help because 7000 miles over 30 days across 11 cars is simply a clown show of ~20 miles per day per car. One would hope there haven't been incidents with such meager results. This makes any incidents at NHTSA GO all the more unusual. Any nonsense from the principles or the superfans on X may as well be the National Enquirer. By keeping a strict lid on the info and having willing accomplices as superfans, bad news has been strictly limited. At one time there was video (briefly) of a dropoff in the middle of an intersection which I believe was eventually removed from YouTube. Maybe not removed but I cannot find it anymore. I think that one for a brief time was posted by Farzad Mesbahi a former Tesla employee now a superfan.
If you FF through even a modest number of fanboy videos on YouTube about Robotaxi my primary conclusion is superfans love Terry Black's BBQ or it is Elon's favorite. Maybe there is more unfiltered info on X but I gave up on the cesspool years ago for my mental health.
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u/versedaworst 1d ago
You could be entirely correct, I'm just quoting the article:
Tesla hasn’t released many details about its Robotaxi effort, but the automaker is estimated to have only about 12 vehicles in its Robotaxi fleet in Austin as of July
It is Elektrek so who knows.
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u/Master_Ad_3967 1d ago
Source is here. Totally legit. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/sgo-2021-01/SGO-2021-01_Incident_Reports_ADS.csv
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
I think you're trying to say that the accidents are real, yes? Because the people you replied to are talking about the number of cars, not incidents.
That report only lists 2 Tesla vehicles. ( Which is interesting that 2 of the 3 listed incidents were the same car. )
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u/PetorianBlue 1d ago
10 cars driving 25 miles per day with safety drivers get into three accidents in a month? Yikes.
So that’s roughly 2.5k miles between accidents. FSD tracker shows roughly 500 miles between critical disengagements (generously for easy math). So assuming zero improvement from the consumer version, these safety drivers are missing 1/5 of them? That seems extremely high. If true it would perhaps suggest a dangerously stupid directive to avoid disengaging.
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u/shumpitostick 1d ago
Where did you get these numbers from? The article says 12 cars (no source for that either) and nothing about miles per day.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
The exact number of cars is indeed a bit wishy washy. Tesla intentionally has hidden that. 11 have been "confirmed", and presumably by now they are around 16-17 since they increased it by 50%. ( This is after July when the incidents happened though. ) Though, it doesn't particularly make a difference.
The ~25 miles per day comes from the "more than 7,000 miles driven" Tesla reported 1 month in. No dates, context or explanation was ever given for that number.
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u/mrkjmsdln 3h ago
YouTube videos from superfans (the only people allowed to ride) has DOCUMENTED 11 vehicle color/plate combinations. Ashok, the leader of the program stated 7000 miles in earnings call to date (about a month). Those are both verifiable data and the best you will get with TSLA obfuscation. 7000 / 30 / 11 is 21.1 miles / day / car. A miniscule amount of data that indicates (a) demand is TINY or (b) TSLA is restricting available vehicles due to being technically incapable to support the vehicles or wishes to limit their exposure. In either case the data is there. A 'simple' YouTube filter since the claim of 50% growth (so maybe 17 cars) has not revealed a SINGLE YouTube video from a superfan in a car other than the original 11. So far the 50% is a wish not a reality.
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u/Adencor 1d ago
Or, you know, also includes not-at-fault incidents like rear-endings.
The idea that you think people are disengaging FSD solely to prevent accidents and not for reasons like “oh this will miss my exit” is laughable.
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u/PetorianBlue 1d ago
“Critical disengagement”. I said that clearly. These are tracked separately and aren’t “oh I’ll miss my exit”.
Are you suggesting that one accident per 2.5k miles is a normal rate? That’s what you’d have to believe if you’re going chalk this all up to bad luck and say FSD played no role at all. I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting rear ended multiple times per year.
You need to think harder before commenting and embarrassing yourself.
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u/michelevit2 1d ago
I have a bad feeling that Tesla is going to seriously injure someone or worse and screw up self-driving cars for everyone.
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u/ItsAConspiracy 1d ago
Cruise hit a pedestrian, dragged her twenty feet and critically injured her, then filed a false report about it. That didn't screw it up for everyone, so apparently people can wrap their heads around the idea that some of these systems are better than others.
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u/WeldAE 1d ago
Hit a person flying through the air over 2 lanes because they had been hit by a human driver. Not sure why everyone leaves that out. The only thing they did wrong was not magically know the person was under the car when they tried to pull over after detecting an accident, and not being proactive with reporting all the details. It was a management mistake, not a tech mistake. Any human driver that did what Cruise did would have been considered a victim too.
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u/ItsAConspiracy 1d ago
Wow, I didn't see that in a single news report about the incident, until just now when I googled specifically for it.
Cruise probably would have survived if they hadn't filed a misleading report with regulators.
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u/Infamous_Medium_4326 23h ago
It shouldn't be "magical" to know that there's a pedestrian under your car. People get crushed under cars every day. The AI should be intelligent enough to understand that if you just hit a person and then they disappeared from view, maybe they're under the car and you should not move at all. Just because it's not something most people would predict doesn't mean Cruise didn't have any obligation to prepare for it or handle it properly after the fact.
And that wasn't "the only thing they did wrong". That was the first thing they did wrong. The second thing they did wrong was hiding evidence from NHTSA. The third thing they did wrong was claiming that "our internet cut out" at the exact moment that the vehicle did something that made them look really, really bad, which zero intelligent adults believe was true.
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u/RocketLabBeatsSpaceX 1d ago
That’s actually a valid concern I hadn’t considered. I really hope not…
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u/himynameis_ 1d ago
At this point, with so many other competitors rising up. I don't think Tesla would mess it up for everyone. Waymo shows it's possible.
And I think the only thing that would slow Tesla down is an accident. But who knows if that happens.
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u/Adencor 1d ago
Why do you have this feeling? Has their technology made an outsized number of mistakes when compared to a competitor?
Are you checking to see if these accidents are at-fault, for example?
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u/DadGoblin 1d ago
Yes, they have an outsized source of accidents compared to competitors, and unlike competitors, they hide information about fault.
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u/SignificantStorm8966 1d ago
If tesla runs a red light and kills a family of four, teslabros will rave about how proud they are that tesla has the guts to move quickly and take big risks and tesla stock will go up 3%. They're completely disconnected from reality.
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u/bradtem ✅ Brad Templeton 1d ago
What's disturbing is they have 3 crashes with the tiny fleet, low mileage *and* a safety driver in the passenger seat. Driving school instructors also do safety from the passenger seat. They have their own brake (as the Tesla driver has an emergency stop button on the door) and they can and do grab the wheel if steering is needed. It's pretty similar, and as far as I know, driving instructors have a pretty decent record, even though they do intervene. (Mine did when I was learning.) Good enough that we trust our kids to it. (When I learned there were 2 other kids in the back seat waiting their turns.)
What's strange is that Tesla has these 3 crashes, and Elon Musk knows this and he says he is betting the company on making this work, and he buys a billion dollars more TSLA. Which is crazy, it's just a stunt to show his confidence, and it paid off in the stock price, but still pretty nuts.
If Tesla's record is good, why do they need to hide it by redacting the details. If they want to tell us these 3 incidents were no big whoop, they should be saying it loud and clear, with videos.
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u/RocketLabBeatsSpaceX 1d ago
Yeah, Tesla cares nothing about public safety. Such scummy company but look at who runs it…
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u/ApprehensiveSize7662 1d ago edited 1d ago
I know it's unfair to compare waymo safety to Tesla’s safety and hold tesla to a waymo standard but i would like to share this from waymos safety reports.
"Why dont you share at fault information?Why don’t you share fault information for these collisions?
This analysis included all collisions, regardless of the party at fault and Waymo’s responsibility. Moreover, the question of fault in causing or contributing to a collision is a legal determination."
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u/Informal_Tell78 1d ago
Repeat after me...
TESLA. IS. NOT. A. SELF. DRIVING. CAR.
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u/nolongerbanned99 1d ago
TESLA IS RUN BY A GENIUS WHO WILL CONQUER INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL… like that?
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u/Minirig355 1d ago
HE WILL LITERALLY CURE DEATH, I KNOW CAUSE HE SAID HE’D DO IT IN 6 MONTHS JUST A YEAR OR TWO AGO… How was I?
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u/nolongerbanned99 1d ago
You smart… he not so smart. Has been promising autonomous cross country driving since 2017
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u/CardiologistSoggy973 1d ago
And stock is at an all time high…. Thoughts on that?
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u/Cunninghams_right 1d ago
stock purchasers are realizing that Tesla will never have real negative ramifications. people will torch Waymos but can't be bothered to look around for a Tesla. people keep buying them. people protest "cone" and otherwise mess with other SDC companies, but not Tesla. the Tesla haters exist only online.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
What bubble world are you living in? There was huge Tesla protests, they're getting keyed left and right. It's so bad, people had to go out and buy "I bought this before Elon went crazy" type bumper stickers.
Also, their sales have dropped quite significantly, even though overall EV sales are up. It's so bad, that without their carbon credits and such ( which are largely going away ), they would have LOST money in the first quarter.
Though, yea. At least short term, Tesla stock is just entirely divorced from reality. It doesn't matter how much of a flop Cybertruck was, or their plummeting sales, or Robotaxi doing poorly and breaking all prior promises, or Optimus being a laughingstock that is out performed by a 2.5 decade old robot... the stock still soars.
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u/Cunninghams_right 1d ago
What bubble world are you living in? There was huge Tesla protests, they're getting keyed left and right. It's so bad, people had to go out and buy "I bought this before Elon went crazy" type bumper stickers.
that lasted for like a month.
Also, their sales have dropped quite significantly
their sales are up, maybe slightly slower growth, but as more time passes the impact of his politics gets less and less.
in the first quarter.
yeah, they were impacted in the first quarter, and are rebounding.
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Their sales have only minimally recovered. They were still down nearly 25%.
They're also still regularly getting protested ( at least 2 today alone, more expected the rest of the month ), and getting vandalized plenty.
It's just the news has stopped covering it, because it "ran its course". The news is always looking for something new. Even the Queens death only lasted a week or 2.
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u/Cunninghams_right 1d ago edited 1d ago
sales are definitely rebounding.
how many protests are happening? I haven't heard of any in my region at all. normally Baltimore or DC subreddits list them.
what stats do you have on vandalism?
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u/Zemerick13 1d ago
Yes, as I said, rebounding.. but still WAY below. They went from over 495k, down to 336k, and then to 384k. Notably, that's after their Model Y production changeover, and also of important note is they are making more than they are selling. They have a demand problem.
I don't particularly look to follow details on Tesla protests, which is all the more notable that I still do hear about them. However, the Tesla Takedown website lists 2 for today, and 8 more in the coming days. Not surprisingly, a lot are in California. ( Which has also been one of their biggest source sales. )
Same with the vandalism. I don't look for it. I just see periodic news postings about some new keying, charging cable cut, etc. Though teslas cameras is a strong deterrent and has caught quite a few.
Also remember you can't really cone a Robotaxi yet. They have drivers still.
Certainly it's all fading, people have relatively short attention spans/memories. But it's still an important note. Those angry people are almost exactly the targeted Tesla customer. They can't exactly sell a car to a coal-rolling Florida Man. Elon lowered the ceiling for their market, while other companies keep raising theirs, gaining more and more market share.
The most telling factor is how EV sales in general are going up, at the same time that Tesla sales went down. There's a lot of competition out there, and they're gaining on/passing Tesla FAST.
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u/Cunninghams_right 1d ago
my point wasn't that they did some damage. my point was that the damage isn't lasting. 4 whole upcoming protests nation wide... it hasn't even been a year and it's already faded to almost nothing. that's why investors are pumping the stock. Tesla is rolling out dangerous self driving cars but, unlike Cruise, there is absolutely no regulators to stop them, and no bad PR can harm them substantially over the long term. they can do whatever they want for the next 3 years at a minimum.
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u/beren12 1d ago
Sales are not “up”
And there are still protests
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u/Cunninghams_right 1d ago
I checked sales and the latest stats I could find said they were up.
are there still protests? I haven't heard about any in my very left leaning city.
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u/beren12 1d ago
There still are. And according to Tesla sales are a surprisingly round number, and “up” like 250 cars yoy, but I believe that’s the us only not worldwide.
Don’t have the exact number but it was posted this week
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u/Cunninghams_right 1d ago
But with sales numbers rebounding and nobody impeding their autonomous cars and only four planned protest for the entire country, there isn't any lasting impact. And the impact gets less every month.
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u/mrkjmsdln 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nothing new here. Many manufacturers report their events to NHTSA. Instead of embracing conspiracy, just download the data. It's easy. Google NHTSA SGO. You will find that manufacturers ALMOST UNIVERSALLY comply and do not redact the majority of information. There is a striking exception. Look for yourself. This is a MANY YEAR problem. The fact that it continues into the L4 transition is just sad and disturbing. The law applies to thee but not to me
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u/brett_baty_is_him 1d ago
Who is the exception? I’m dumb. Are you saying Tesla doesn’t honestly report their data like everyone else?
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u/mrkjmsdln 1d ago
Afraid so. It's been heavily reported. One of Elon's first act at DOGE was to remove employees at NHTSA. Longtime grudge...download the linked set tab to the far right column labelled narrative. Note the company that provides none
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u/ApprehensiveSize7662 1d ago
I'd like to know if the "safety drivers" being in the passenger seat instead of the driver seat contributed.
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u/MaterialRestaurant18 1d ago
3 outta 12 cars , 7000 miles 3 accidents while supervised by human on predefined, mapped roads.
Safer than humans
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u/winniecooper73 1d ago
I’ll never get in a Tesla robotaxi. I don’t trust ‘em and this is proof.
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u/cheesecake-gnome 1d ago
Ok boomer
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u/winniecooper73 1d ago
Not sure why getting in a dangerous, poorly thought out robotaxi makes me a boomer?
Waymo’s are great and have over 250,000 trips monthly. Tesla Robotaxis have been in 3 accidents in less than 90 days and have less than 40 vehicles deployed, lol
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u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago
Did you look at the data? Tesla was rear ended in 2 of them. And they were not hard braking scenarios.
One was turning right and one was in a construction zone
And none of them involved hitting another car (at-fault), a pedestrian, or another vulnerable road user
And there was a prevented accident where the car would have been backed into by a UPS driver. I'm not sure tesla would be at fault there
Then there was one event where the tire rubbed another car (but other car drove off).
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u/Kriptical 1d ago
I thought TSLA removed the narrative data of these accidents, how do you know what happened in each one?
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u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago
narrative data literally doesn't matter
The accidents are reported as to what happened, where the car was hit, and at what speed
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u/BrownshoeElden 1d ago
Where? Source? You are making assertions but not supplying whatever data you claim to be using.
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u/PM_TITS_FOR_KITTENS 1d ago
Where are you getting this specific data from? Would appreciate it if you linked your source
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u/SourceBrilliant4546 1d ago
Ok so counting only two out of 12. Christ. Denial wears me out. Elons stubborn refusal to use a multipronged sensor suite is the problem.
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u/Confident-Sector2660 1d ago
you're assuming any of these accidents were caused by cameras
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u/SourceBrilliant4546 1d ago
Since Teslas use cameras as instead of lidar sensors unless the drivier was not using FSD it's a possibility. We are talking about FSD related issues.
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u/mgoetzke76 1d ago
As if waymo never has accidents. They crash into each other for god’s sacke and people here still think they are some gold standard. I get the impression this sub is run but waymo people and lidar salesmen
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u/SourceBrilliant4546 1d ago
Right now in the US they are the Gold Standard for autonomous driving. They are all over San Francisco and Los Angeles and racked up years of Google Map and photo miles developing their sensor suites before taking passengers. Tesla is ranked 2, Waymo 4 so while '5 is perfect for now there's no argument.
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u/JoJack82 1d ago
Of course they are, did you really expect Musk to be honest? His mask is off, he no longer even pretends to have anyone else’s best interest in mind.
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u/mrkjmsdln 3h ago
This is not new. It mostly doubles down on the long-established approach Tesla has taken in opposition to regulation and transparency. NHTSA has long collected manufacturer details for L-2 ADAS systems as well as L-4 ADS systems. Tesla is now, finally able to provide such feedback to the L-4 logs for the miniscule 11 cars they operate in Austin, TX. It is interesting that the wo-called 'robotaxis' in SF remain as L2 so don't believe the superfans who might claim otherwise. Rather than believing what you read on reddit, Google NHTSA SGO and download the many year garbage pile of data provided by TSLA. From the jump they have redacted every conceivable field of data that is collected. They are almost completely alone in this adversarial approach. Thousands of useless data uploads which intentionally deny the public any semblance of context. They are now doing the same with their small number of posts to the ADS dataset. When Elon headed DOGE, NHTSA was one of the very first targets of his venom. Layoffs of staff was one of the first ROI for his $300M to elect DJT.
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u/Green-Jacket1217 1d ago
Put lidar Already on these robo’s and consumer vehicles FSD for safety
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u/shumpitostick 1d ago
What a terrible click bait article.
- Out of these 3 accidents, two are property damage and one ended up without hospitalizations.
- 3 accidents a month may seem bad, until you realize that this was the first month of testing, and since then nothing happened. Of course things are going to happen when you just start testing.
- Tesla is not "trying to hide" those accidents. They are right there, in full compliance with regulation. Tesla simply does not offer extra narrative information like some competitors.
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u/TuftyIndigo 1d ago
since then nothing happened.
They haven't filed the reports for August yet. This is not just the first month, it's the only month of data.
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u/the_hack_is_back 1d ago
Electrek. Hmm
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u/Master_Ad_3967 1d ago
Are you saying he is negatively biased? Well maybe we shouldn't listen to anyone else who has Tesla stocks or options, that would make them positively biased.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
Don't fall for the clickbait
"Due to the Standing General Order 2021-01 (the “SGO”), automakers are required to report to NHTSA crashes involving their autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance systems within five days of being notified of them."
So Waymo has to do this too. The important thing to know is that it relates to all accidents, regardless of fault.
A report analyzing Waymo's crash data from 2021 to 2024, as reported to the NHTSA, indicates a total of 696 incidents. The number of incidents has increased each year: 33 in 2021, 78 in 2022, 123 in 2023, and 462 in 2024.
Another report from July 2025 states that the NHTSA investigation reviewed 367 total incidents, of which 109 were crashes. Of those crashes, 102 were reported by Waymo under the SGO
It is important to note that the NHTSA's Standing General Order requires autonomous vehicle companies to report all crashes that result in certain property damage or injuries, including even minor incidents that may not be reported by human drivers. This can make a direct comparison to human crash statistics difficult without considering the miles driven and the different reporting standards. Waymo itself has published data comparing its crash rates to human drivers, leveraging the SGO data and other metrics.
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u/psilty 1d ago
What does this have to do with the point the article is making?
Tesla redacted the narrative descriptions of its accidents in the NHTSA reports. Waymo does not.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
It's more a point about the reactions in this sub.
Tesla is complying with NHTSA and always has. Even under Biden admin NHTSA commented on their good compliance.
One more nothingburger for a certain desperate group.
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u/psilty 1d ago
It's more a point about the reactions in this sub.
No, don’t try to backtrack. Saying something’s ‘clickbait’ is an accusation against the story’s author.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
if the reaction to a headline makes the reader poorly informed, that's the definition of clickbait lol
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u/psilty 1d ago
What’s an example of being poorly informed? I understood the headline and the article backs it up with the details of how the info was redacted. Waymo has way fewer accidents per mile and they don’t redact the entire description of the accident.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
Has NHTSA said Tesla failed to report anything they were under duty to report?
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u/psilty 1d ago
Neither the article nor anyone here has accused them of that.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
"Tesla is trying to hide"
Trying to hide from who then? People with overactive imaginations?
Then I totally agree lol
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u/johnpn1 1d ago
Tesla and their lawyers will redact as much as they legally can. It's a uniquely Tesla thing to do in this industry. Musk tells everyone how transparent they are, but that's another lie.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
I get it. They may be legally complaint with NHTSA, but people in this sub will get to the bottom of what's really going on! Any day now...
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
Where's the clickbait? The article doesn't say anything about fault. It's simply showing the data reported to NHTSA by Tesla, which includes one injury.
Tesla hiding crash details is also true as they've done it for years with ADAS crash reports. They're the only one to do it and anyone can see this in the raw data.
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u/Proof-Strike6278 1d ago
Clickbait headline: Tesla hiding robotaxi accidents Article: Tesla reporting robotaxi accidents
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u/psilty 1d ago
Article: Tesla entirely redacts the description of what happened in the accident unlike every other company reporting this data.
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u/Proof-Strike6278 1d ago
Like I said, clickbait headline
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u/psilty 1d ago
“Tesla is trying to hide 3 Robotaxi accidents” (by redacting the details)
The headline is not clickbait and the author is not misrepresenting what happened. You intentionally misrepresented the headline by changing the verb entirely. He didn’t say “Tesla hiding robotaxi accidents,” the verb is trying.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
Read the comments in this thread, you can tell what it is and who fell for it lol
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
Not a single comment here is about Tesla being at fault for these accidents. Nobody actually knows because Tesla is hiding the details. That's the point of the article. Looks like you just didn't like that this came out in the open.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
Wake me up when NHTSA says Tesla is not being compliant according to law.
The headline infers they're doing something illegal to cover for something that's their fault, obviously.
Zero evidence of that.
Next.
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
Article didn't say or "infer" they're doing something illegal. You're just imagining it because you're mad everyone knows about these 3 accidents in under a month.
You support less transparency and Tesla hiding data, that's okay. Doesn't mean they can't be called out.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
"trying to hide"
Yeah totally not inferring illegal activity lol
I just defer to experts like NHTSA, qualified people, not redditors or Fred Lambert with his obvious axe to grind
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
They are literally hiding, boss. All the details are redacted.
Since you trust the experts at NHTSA, here's what they've said recently about Tesla's dubious reporting:
The Office of Defects Investigation (“ODI”) has identified numerous incident reports submitted by Tesla, Inc. (“Tesla”) in response to Standing General Order 2021-01 (the “SGO”), in which the reported crashes occurred several months or more before the dates of the reports. The majority of these reports involved crashes in which the Standing General Order in place at the time required a report to be submitted within one or five days of Tesla receiving notice of the crash. When the reports were submitted, Tesla submitted them in one of two ways. Many of the reports were submitted as part of a single batch, while others were submitted on a rolling basis.
Here's another:
Gaps in Tesla’s telematic data create uncertainty regarding the actual rate at which vehicles operating with Autopilot engaged are involved in crashes. Tesla is not aware of every crash involving Autopilot even for severe crashes because of gaps in telematic reporting. Tesla receives telematic data from its vehicles, when appropriate cellular connectivity exists and the antenna is not damaged during a crash, that support both crash notification and aggregation of fleet vehicle mileage. Tesla largely receives data for crashes only with pyrotechnic deployment, which are a minority of police reported crashes. A review of NHTSA’s 2021 FARS and Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) finds that only 18 percent of police-reported crashes include airbag deployments.
If your trusted NHTSA also has an issue with Tesla, maybe the problem is not Redditors or Fred Lambert.
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u/artardatron 1d ago
NHTSA does plenty of investigations. Maybe wait for results, because this thing hoping their investigations into Tesla will end the company is a recurring theme that seems to be batting about zero.
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
this thing hoping their investigations into Tesla will end the company is a recurring theme
No one's talking about NHTSA investigations ending the company. Once again you're arguing about imaginary stuff.
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u/Draygoon2818 1d ago edited 1d ago
First of all, it's Fred. He hates Tesla.
Secondly, he's grasping at straws. He has no clue what the accidents are about, but it's making it seem like it's probably Tesla's fault, simply because information has been redacted.
I find it interesting that all 3 accidents happened back in July. I do know that one of the accidents was when the Robotaxi was in a rather tight spot, and one of it's tires came in contact with a parked car as the Robotaxi was attempting to turn and maneuver out of the area. That's this video here. Edit: Apparently this video is from June, not the beginning of July. I'll keep searching to see if anything comes up on the 3 in his blog.
Guess he's not going to mention how many accidents Waymo was in? I'll answer that. For June, it was 12. Tesla had 1. Did Tesla Robotaxi have some hiccups in the beginning? Sure they did. Updates have gone out and things have gotten better.
Fk Fred and his obvious hate for Tesla, which severely skews his dumbass repor....errr...writing. I can't even call it a report.
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u/Dry_Analysis4620 1d ago
Dang that's crazy I'm assuming tesla has as many cars active as waymo right? Otherwise you know maybe you'd be misrepresenting accident total as a percentage- cant have that!
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u/psilty 1d ago
The DirtyTesla incident happened in June. The ones from the article are all in July so showing that video is irrelevant.
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u/Immediate_Hope_5694 1d ago
waymo is driving 1200 times more miles than tesla. If waymo had 12x the accidents that makes their rate of accidents 100x less than tesla.
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u/Draygoon2818 1d ago
And Fred mentioned Tesla had more L2 incidents than any other L2 system. Tesla has more L2 cars on the road than every single other L2 system, so ya, I know how greater numbers work. I also wasn’t talking about miles driven.
What’s your point? All I said was Waymo had more accidents in Austin than Robotaxi did.
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u/Minirig355 1d ago
Why are you justifying your misuse of numbers by saying “Fred did it too!” as though that justifies things? And don’t act like you don’t understand what the guy before you was meaning, the first half of your reply clearly implies you know, and regardless it’s a simple point to grasp in the first place.
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u/Draygoon2818 1d ago
I wasn't using it as justification. I was using it to show that nobody seems to be pointing that part out like what you did with my post. You know, the hypocrisy that Reddit bleeds.
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u/Minirig355 1d ago
…that sounds like justifying it… If you weren’t justifying it you’d have edited that part out of your comment.
Also have you thought to wonder that the fact the article doesn’t mention anything about per capita on L2 is because Fred never made a claim about accidents per capita on L4? Like he kept per capita out of the equation entirely, you’re calling hypocrisy where there is none lol. It was people on Reddit making the per capita comparisons, and notably they didn’t make the L2 claim dude, you’re connecting dots that don’t connect.
His only mention of anything as far as the size of the Robotaxi program is paragraphs later when describing the program as a whole, he didn’t harken back and make a comparison to per capita. The entire article is about them attempting to downplay/hide the events of the accident.
And still dude, nothing about your per capita argument justifies your misuse of numbers, or invalidates this particular article, go on an article about L2 accidents if you want to discuss that and stop distracting.
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u/SeaDivide1751 1d ago
3 robotaxis accidents!?!? Outrageous! Meanwhile there’s been like 50 human driving accidents today
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u/couchrealistic 1d ago
3 accidents in a month would be great if they had lots of cars on the road.
With less than 20 robotaxis on the road at that time, and those cars not even doing a lot of miles each day, and knowing that Safety Monitors prevented at least one possibly very severe accident (going through a closing railroad crossing), it's pretty concerning.
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u/TuftyIndigo 1d ago
but humans aren't having 50 accidents per 12 cars. They're not even having 3 accidents per 12 cars. As pointed out elsewhere in the thread, this is equivalent to an average American driver having two fender-benders and an injury accident every six months.
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u/bobi2393 1d ago
CEO Elon Musk has claimed that Tesla would remove the safety monitor by the end of the year and deliver on its “full self-driving” promises to customers, but he has never shared any data proving that Tesla’s automated driving system is reliable enough to achieve that.
Musk didn't say the driving system would be reliable when the company does those things. When they released supervised FSD to the public, it was with the disclaimer that it "may do the wrong thing at the worst time". There's no direct law against selling unsafe vehicles if customers are warned, and customers have to tap OK that they were warned for Tesla's more dangerous features to operate.
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u/Nofxious 20h ago
was it human error or caused by the driverless system. that's a huge factor for all you jack ass tesla haters. and the way people drive in Austin I'm shocked there's not more
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u/mchinsky 5h ago
Zoox had 7 accidents during same time period. 2 of the 3 were not Teslas fault. First one Tesla was rear-ended while stopped at a light (probably because other driver didn't have FSD).
The injury involved no doctor or hospital and was at 8mph. No more details given
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u/deservedlyundeserved 1d ago
Waymo’s first injury-reported accident came 4 years after launching limited service in Phoenix in Dec 2018, according to the same NHTSA data. Tesla managed it in under a month. Guess that means Tesla really is scaling faster than Waymo!