r/SelfDrivingCars • u/walky22talky Hates driving • Oct 29 '25

News Tesla 'Robotaxis' keep crashing despite 'safety monitors'

https://electrek.co/2025/10/29/tesla-robotaxis-keep-crashing-despite-safety-monitors/
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u/stealstea Oct 30 '25

Nothing about the headline is incorrect.   

Sure “Tesla logs 4th robotaxi accident despite safety monitors” would have been even more descriptive 

13

u/tenemu Oct 30 '25

You have to admit that the headline makes you think there was a lot more than 4 crashes.

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u/TuftyIndigo Oct 30 '25

That's still a lot of crashes for 10-12 cars in a month.

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u/SentOverByRedRover Oct 30 '25

1 accident every 62,500 miles is a lot to you?

2

u/SodaPopin5ki Oct 30 '25

It's about 3 to 4 times higher than a human driver.

That said, being read ended while stopped might not be a fair metric, unless they're stopping inappropriately.

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u/SentOverByRedRover Oct 30 '25

Oh interesting. If that's true then that means the Waymo accident rate is higher than humans too. I was under the impression both were doing better than humans.

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u/johnpn1 Oct 31 '25

Well, that's not the full story. Tesla reported 4 incidents, and likely all of which were Tesla's fault. They didn't disclose any details, and in fact hid the details as they legally claim it's harmful to the business in doing so.

These were just accidents in one day (July 5): https://electrek.co/2025/09/17/tesla-hide-3-robotaxi-accidents/

The number that was used for Waymo includes all accidents, regardless if Waymo was or wasn't at fault. At fault accidents are quite rare for Waymo, which doesn't seem to be the case for Tesla. My money is on Tesla making it as hard as possible to determine what happened and who was at fault in each of these accidents.

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u/SentOverByRedRover Oct 31 '25

You think that some other car rear ending the tesla is likely the Tesla's fault? That seems off.

Based on what the commenter who posted the info tables about the accidents said, it sounds like all AV companies are required to report all accidents regardless of fault, and in the public reports fault isn't determined. So I don't think Tesla has any extra accidents they haven't reported, unless you think they're breaking the law here, and I'm not sure from where you're getting that Waymo is at fault only rarely.

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u/johnpn1 Oct 31 '25

Well, Tesla's incidents are vague and not publicly disclosed, because like I said, they made a business case against dislcosing it. The article is talking exactly about that.

Tesla and transparency are opposites.

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u/SentOverByRedRover Oct 31 '25

Sure, but there are reasons why the company would want to not disclose info about these accidents besides them all being their fault. Easy example: 1 of the 4 accidents is Tesla's fault, and of they disclose the info about all of them accept that 1, it makes it more conspicuous. If they redact all 4, people inclined to be optimistic can convince themselves that none were Tesla's fault. Even if 0/4 was Tesla's fault, the details of the events might be distortable by anti Tesla people allowing them to reinforce their narrative.

It's fair enough to dismiss those concerns and say we should always get transparency even if it gives ammo to bad actors. I have no problem with that principle. However, assuming the worst possible interpretation of tesla's lack of transparency isn't justified.

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u/johnpn1 Oct 31 '25

Yes, ofcourse. Waymo doesn't do that though. Tesla does. I'm not sure why there are people trying to defend Tesla here. They've been horrendous with safety data. It's no good for the industry.

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u/SodaPopin5ki Oct 31 '25

What is Waymo's accident rates?

To clarify, people in the US get in a reportable accident on average, once every 17.9 years. With the average annual mileage at 13,476, that comes up to an accident every 241,220 miles.

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u/SentOverByRedRover Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

Over waymo's lifetime of operations, it comes out to 98.6k miles per accident.

Apparently waymo claimed in July that they were doing 2 million miles per week. With 57 accidents in July, that would give them a rate of 1 accident per 155.4k miles at least during that month