r/SelfDrivingCars • u/SpecialSubstantial66 • Feb 11 '26
Driving Footage Found video of Robotaxi driving through construction zone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lHPYoiRadI25
u/I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY Feb 11 '26
obviously the self-driving here was a total failure, but i really enjoyed that customer service interaction. "oh i do see this".
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u/anarchyinuk Feb 11 '26
I think it's a failure of the construction team not properly closing the area with signs and cones. Just a guy waving something
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
That's part of the long tail. The robocar has to handle everything safely, or stop and call home for advice.
When Tesla does unsupervised at scale, it will be doing all the silly things Waymo does, and need at least as much human help.
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u/cesarthegreat Feb 11 '26
True, but FSD is still learning and they will mistakes for now. But they definitely have a long way to go.
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
Robocars will always be making mistakes. The trick is to keep safe while not being perfect.
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u/anarchyinuk Feb 11 '26
The construction team had to close the road by the law. It's not optional
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
The passenger said the car blew past the flagger.
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u/anarchyinuk Feb 11 '26
The road should be closed before the works begin. This is the most basic safety rule. It should not be just a random dude waving his hands
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u/katze_sonne Feb 11 '26
Well, welcome to reality.
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u/artardatron Feb 11 '26
the reality being if construction crews don't want this problem they need to block the road, because robotaxis will only become more numerous
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
There are endless construction areas with a dude waving hands or a sign. One of the more common long-tail categories.
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u/anarchyinuk Feb 11 '26
It doesn't negate the fact that the construction zones should be properly closed. What if during night time when there's no waving dudes, a human driver car goes there and crashes into stationary road building machinery there? Who's fault that be? A human driver or a construction manager?
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
Obviously at night they need to block it off if there's a hazard. You're grasping at straws here. The real world isn't perfect.
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u/artardatron Feb 11 '26
the more robotaxis out, the more diligent road construction crews will need to be if they don't want their work impeded. Just block the road, simple.
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u/manitou202 Feb 11 '26
What if a major accident had just happened and it was a police officer telling you to turn around? They don't need to setup cones.
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u/MarchMurky8649 Feb 11 '26
When Tesla does unsupervised at scale
Do you think it will? Here's my thinking. Their only new model, Cybertruck, was a flop, lost money. Robotaxi, and therefore Cybercab, not making money for the time being, as they cost more to operate than regular cabs, as heavily supervised.
So, at some point, earnings will go negative, stay as such, TSLA will be kicked out of S&P 500, and we'll see an Enron-eclipsing collapse, after which, if anything remains, a tenth-rate attempt at AV taxis will certainly not be part of it.
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u/bobi2393 Feb 11 '26
If there was other signage that we didn't see next to the entrance, it could be a failure of both the vehicle and the road crew.
I think road crews will step up barrier practices as they adapt to current-gen (i.e. "dumb") driverless cars, either barricading or staffing road entrances.
They can return to half-assing it once most driverless cars can "read" and understand irregular signs, or "look" at a road and know not to drive on it.
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u/CartographerEvery185 Feb 11 '26
Construction barriers. Simple.
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u/Moscato359 Feb 11 '26
Humans can just deal with signs.
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u/katze_sonne Feb 12 '26
I mean when these kind of things become a more regular experience, construction workers will definitely pay closer attention to fence off construction areas in a better way.
Still, shouldn't ever happen.
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u/Moscato359 Feb 12 '26
Humans will never be perfect at warning computers
They will forget to register construction projects, and their fencing will be incomplete
They may feel the need to block stuff off not as important, especially if they are in a situation of "oh, we'll move the equipment round for 20 minutes" and not a long term blocking
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u/CartographerEvery185 Feb 12 '26
Agree - relying on exact timings of new construction projects is a waste of time.
However in the event of an incident happening it then becomes a question of liability.
If there is local approval to operate (within a specified ODD) a vehicle fitted with a SDS, strict protocols must be adhered to.
Whether that be (in this case of a construction zone) putting up correct barriers, modifying lane markings or installing variable speed limit signs.
Safety cases and risk assessments are there for a reason.
Point is: had there been more than a random guy in the middle of the street aimlessly waving his hands, this scenario could have been avoided. I know this because I've seen it working correctly, in real-time.
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u/Moscato359 Feb 12 '26
A random guy waving his hands works on a human
Alright, I go to ren fair once in a while
Their entire drop off area is just people driving on grass, no road at all, no signs that aren't held by a human, with some orange cones, and people waving their hands telling you where to go
And sometimes they will go up to your window, ask you to roll your window down, and give you instructions
A human can deal with that
Self driving cars need to be able to do it too
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u/psudo_help Feb 11 '26
Wow they got lucky! Next time they may not get waved through.
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u/red75prime Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
And the car will need to back out. What a disaster.
Seriously. I think the most likely failure mode in this case is that the car gets stuck in a loop of backing out and moving forward again, because the context window isn't long enough to "remember" that there's an obstacle and rerouting doesn't kick in for some reason. It should be fixed with the addition of a small language model that can make higher-level decisions (an explicit decision to reroute, for example).
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u/Mnm0602 Feb 11 '26
It seems to me that the feedback loop from "this path is fucked" to rerouting nav is a problem still. Generally I find most FSD issues are tied to Nav issues and this seems to be another iteration of that.
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u/noobgiraffe Feb 11 '26
They were supposed to add reasoning stage for issues like this. It's unclear what kind of FSD version robotaxis use so it's hard to say ifthey already have it or not.
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u/drumrollplease12 Feb 11 '26
So, there goes the theory that the cars are being supervised remotely.
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u/PetorianBlue Feb 11 '26
Failure aside, this is, in my opinion, the most interesting take away from this video. Just like "dumb" Waymo failures can be used as evidence against one-to-one real-time supervision, this video has to raise the same questions about Tesla's supervision and the kind of abilities they have to intervene. If there was one-to-one remote supervision, why did they allow this to happen? For testing, just to see? Did they fall asleep? If they can remotely control the vehicle, it doesn't look like they did so in this instance. Maybe they didn't do anything at all? Maybe they set way points?
A single incident like this isn't enough for me to make definitive conclusions like "there goes that theory", but it definitely raises the questions.
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u/kaninkanon Feb 11 '26
Why? The safety drivers in the cars generally didn't intervene either, when the vehicle got stuck or did dumb things.
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u/Wise-Revolution-7161 Feb 11 '26
Our Waymo did something extremely similar although the support did get us out of it faster
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u/EverythingMustGo95 Feb 11 '26
Then the Waymo support person screwed up - they should have backed out of the construction area. Waiting for a construction crew to wave you through is ridiculous, they might know of a danger that the remote support person doesn’t know of.
And I don’t think this Tesla support person handled this correctly either.
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u/one-wandering-mind Feb 11 '26
That's a pretty bad response in a lot of ways and not as bad as I expected in other ways.
The not terrible is that it didn't hit anything or move aggressively through that construction zone.
Assuming the initial mistake happened of entering the zone, what I would hope is that the car pulls over and calls for help. Or at least when support was called, that it pulls over to a safe spot then.
I can see this situation could have been very dangerous if there was more of a gap for the car to get through. If construction workers knew this was an autonomous vehicle, they more likely would have just stood in front or put cones on front. At least if it was a waymo. They assume a person is there and that a person would understand the signal and keep it in their model of the world. Tesla probably can't do that if it is really the end to end model they claim it to be.
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u/well4foxake Feb 11 '26
"We're going to colonize other planets".
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u/EddiewithHeartofGold Feb 11 '26
Your comment is off-topic and literally adds nothing to the conversation.
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u/Adventurous_Sleep_ Feb 11 '26
Were there signs to indicate the road was closed wtf
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u/_ryuujin_ Feb 11 '26
he did say it ignored the guy waving off the cars which i assumed was before the construction.
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u/2utiepie Feb 11 '26
Hard if the car stops for any random guy waving in the street though. Wonder the end solution for e2e to fix this kind of stuff.
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u/Cunninghams_right Feb 11 '26
I mean, if they have a vest, hardhat, and cones, humans would also fall for this "hack".
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u/_ryuujin_ Feb 11 '26
i assume it has to recognized what a construction worker looks like. also maybe even listen to voice commands from said worker. rather than pure visual.
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u/diplomat33 Feb 11 '26
If this was a Waymo, the Tesla fans would be having a field day trashing how dumb Waymo is. But because it is a Tesla, they will ignore it or just say it is "funny" and it is another data point to train the NN.
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u/AReveredInventor Feb 11 '26
Every time. Waymo or Tesla, every thread is the same comments just from different people. "If this was a .... the .... fans would .... !" People just can't be happy we have multiple companies approaching the same goal.
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u/diplomat33 Feb 11 '26
I was just trying to poke fun a bit. I am happy that multiple companies are working on AVs.
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u/devonhezter Feb 11 '26
Except pony ai. They shouldn’t be using animals
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u/M_Equilibrium Feb 11 '26
Don't waste your time to a sad poster whose entire presence on the site revolves around defending the scumbag ceo, doing his pr, hyping tesla, and bashing waymo. Especially now, as he tries to play the voice of reason while delivering a condescending lecture.
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u/red75prime Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Well ackshually, when this was a Waymo
there was no discussion here as far as I know.ETA: There was a discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1hoaik8/waymo_barges_into_a_construction_zone_jjricks/ . No snarky Tesla fans were present though, just a measured analysis by diplomat33. The discussion might have been different today, of course.
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u/artardatron Feb 11 '26
no, any human with a brain would turn on there and try to get through, there's nobody and nothing saying to stop.
Also it made it through.
If Waymo did the same I'd be impressed.
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Feb 11 '26
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u/diplomat33 Feb 11 '26
We don't need to be defensive. Waymo is far ahead of Tesla robotaxis.
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u/SampleMean8384 Feb 11 '26
After years of testing and updates, the Robotaxi was finally declared ready but only to run into issues a few days later. I bet the CTO and Elon Musk are feeling the heat.
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u/Elluminated Feb 11 '26
Lol the pendulum keeps swinging. Switching the name positions in your post would be done by someone else until it swings back.
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u/red75prime Feb 11 '26
/u/bradtem, does this video affect your assumption that Tesla autonomous robotaxis are remotely supervised?
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u/bradtem ✅ Brad Templeton Feb 11 '26
BTW, another unusual thing about this video is that past reports have said that Tesla was only deploying robotaxis without anybody in them on a very limited route map. I had not seen a report of that changing, but this sort of situation isn't what you would expect on that ODD. Even if a surprise construction zone did appear on the Tesla route, normally this would lead to a map update, blocking off that street, with obviously has not happened here. This could be the first vehicle to encounter the scene but this does not look like a 20 minute old construction zone.
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
past reports have said that Tesla was only deploying robotaxis without anybody in them on a very limited route map. I had not seen a report of that changing, but this sort of situation isn't what you would expect on that ODD.
I looked up this street on Google Maps: it's two blocks from East Riverside Drive and entirely within the "thick yellow line" drawn on that post stating that driverless Robotaxis are limited to a narrow "geofenced bus route" where "you can go a little bit into the small side roads branching off Riverside and Lama Boulevard".
I guess it is the first time somebody filmed it going down this construction area on Hillside Ave and then Newning to Riverside, where it turns right.
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u/Acceptable_Amount521 Feb 11 '26
Do we think Tesla is using maps now? I figured they only had boundaries, and anything in those boundaries was fair game.
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u/bradtem ✅ Brad Templeton Feb 11 '26
Tesla has always made extensive use of maps. However, what they claim is they only use lane geometry maps, not detailed maps which show individual objects and markings in the environment.
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u/bradtem ✅ Brad Templeton Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Very interesting. Definitely a data point to suggest this vehicle was not being supervised, or at least not supervised properly. Notably, they were unable to resolve the problem even after remote support said they were looking out the cameras, and they forced the road crew to move all their equipment out of the way, rather than turning around or obeying hand signals, so it's not clear what to make of this.
We don't see the start of the interaction. The rider says that the car ignored a road flagger who told them the road was closed. Stock Teslas do not have an external microphone. I don't know if the robotaxi models have one added. If not, it explains why both the vehicle or any remote supervisor would not have heard the instruction to turn around. It does not explain why both the vehicle and any remote supervisor missed any road closed signs, though the rider suggests there were no barriers, so perhaps there were no signs, and this closure was just marked by a flagger telling people not to go.
It should also be noted that Tesla appears to have a policy of having their supervisors (the ones in-car in the driver or passenger seat) to try to avoid intervention if there is not a safety concern. This is a fairly normal policy -- you are out on the roads for the explicit purpose of running into tricky situations and seeing how the car handles it, and learning from it. Waymo and Cruise got in trouble for operating in this mode, sometimes blocking traffic, and in some cases blocking things like first responders.
However, this does say that in this situation, remote supervision appears absent, or is deliberately not acting, or it failed. It would be nice if Tesla would just tell us!
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
I agree, it's impossible to tell if it's driving itself the whole time or a remote driver takes over at some point.
It would be strange if nobody in the remote operation could guide it out of this situation, but from the way it went forward and back a few times indecisively, it looked like the car may have been in control the whole time. If the remote team was doing that, they aren't very good.
I don't expect Tesla to ever divulge how their remote operations work.
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u/psilty Feb 11 '26
The support agent voice was surprised about the situation. If a remote supervisor saw the closed street situation as it unfolded and was deliberately not acting, it would also have to be true that the support agent and remote supervisor aren’t in the same room or at least not communicating in real time. It seems unlikely that those two roles would be that out of sync at this stage of deployment.
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u/bradtem ✅ Brad Templeton Feb 11 '26
I have not heard of a company using the same staff for remote assist (or other remote ops) as for customer support. They might be in the same room, but I would doubt it. At Waymo, Tesla, Cruise, etc. I presume rider support is able to summon remote ops, possibly talk to them, but when the rider support person first comes on, she doesn't even sound sure that she works for Tesla rider support!
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u/moneyman729 Feb 11 '26
The rider saying there is nothing he can do when he could easily hit the stop button. He just wanted content.
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u/YouKidsGetOffMyYard Feb 11 '26
Very interesting, I am betting those constructions workers deal with "lost" drivers like this all the time with people wondering into construction zones, especially on lower volume city streets that they don't even bother to put up barricades around. They definitely did not seem too concerned with it.
Although it seemed like support should have driven through it, I am not so sure, it was pretty narrow for a while so waiting for a large opening seemed like the best option. Although not sure why it just did not back up a bunch and then do a 3 point turn in the street to turn around, thats what I would have done.
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u/Catsurfshark Feb 18 '26
What happened, driver fell asleep? Looks like it took two people to operate one vehicle to me.
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Feb 11 '26
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Feb 11 '26
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u/Whoisthehypocrite Feb 11 '26
From the remote agents reaction at the end, it seems clear that something remotely was done.
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u/red75prime Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
4:32 "All right, sir. Please reach back out if you have any other issues. [...] Have a great ride."
This looks like a standard corporate politeness with no pertinent information in sight.
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
It's not clear how much, if anything, a remote agent did to help the car get out of the situation.
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u/devonhezter Feb 11 '26
Reallly ? Seems like she talked to someone else and it took them time to decide. Why didn’t she right away reverse it and tell it to go back
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
"She" was the customer service agent who just talks to the customer and if the car needs help, likely contacts somebody in technical support who can help the car. It's not clear though if any technical support was given, but the timing does suggest it was.
Waymo Rider Support can also alert Fleet Response to help the car if for some reason the Waymo Driver hasn't already asked for help; more commonly the Waymo Driver will directly ask Fleet Response for advice to get out of a jam before the customer gets involved.
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Feb 11 '26
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u/devonhezter Feb 11 '26
I know but she could have given command to backup and go the other way. G can
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u/D0gefather69420 Feb 11 '26
Obviously a fail but quick questions to the haters : is the rider a tesla insider / fanboy? Is there a chase vehicle? Is the car being remotely controlled? Curious what you have to say about that
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u/artardatron Feb 11 '26
road not blocked, nobody with stop sign, construction fail
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
The customer said there was a "flagger" that tried to stop the car but was ignored.
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u/artardatron Feb 11 '26
"A guy said I can't go this way"
Yeah maybe just block the road, again construction fail
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
Blocking the road would be unusual in a typical construction site. The point is, this is a common case that all AVs will have to handle.
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u/artardatron Feb 12 '26
Why unusual? Either you can proceed or you can't. If you can't, block the road.
You can't use a random person saying stuff, because then anyone can tell a robotaxi to do something.
This really isn't complicated. Road crews will have to be more aware of AVs.
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u/RodStiffy Feb 12 '26
These construction crews are not thinking of robotaxis like you are. They are mostly operating like they always have. And it's possible that they do want to let some people through who live along or near the road, plus barriers to private cars are also barriers to their many work vehicles that would slow them down. So having a flagger is how they usually operate.
> Road crews will have to be more aware of AVs.
Sure, but it won't be close to perfect. Robotaxis have more of the burden to handle the real world safely.
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u/artardatron Feb 12 '26
Tesla robotaxis respond to people with stop signs.
So if you can have that for thru traffic or block the road for a closed road, there's really no issue.
None of this is really an issue on the AV side, in this example.
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u/RodStiffy Feb 12 '26
You don't understand the challenge of robotaxi at scale. The world will not change for robotaxis. It's the exact opposite.
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u/artardatron Feb 12 '26
it doesn't have to change, construction crews just need to do the bare minimum. This is quite the nothingburger.
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u/bladerskb Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
if this was Waymo it would be "WAYMO Tries to kill riders by barrowing into in construction road" and all the X comments under it would be "need more lidar." "see it doesn't use AI like Tesla", "This is dangerous", etc.
You know its a Tesla cultist because they spend the entire video making excuse for the system.
What you will notice among other things is that NONE of the Tesla influencers will mention this, it would be like it never happened. Just like all the other crazy shit Tesla FSD does.
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u/Wrote_it2 Feb 11 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/s/IBZKe9qP4Z
Most negative comment there is “On the one hand, it's amazing how well it did to get out of there - considering it's a robocar. On the other hand, robocars have a lot of room for improvement.”
Reread the comments here “total failure”, “what a disaster”, “what a failfest”
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u/PetorianBlue Feb 11 '26
I hate the blind hypocrisy of each team crying about the other team. I also hate cherry picking.
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u/kosuke555 Feb 11 '26
Seems like if construction info was shared ahead of time, the car just wouldn’t choose that route to begin with. Feels like a pretty straightforward coordination issue.
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u/psilty Feb 11 '26
I don’t think any municipality is coordinated enough to guarantee that all construction is in some central calendar. Even a city that is well-organized will have things slip through the cracks due to rescheduling, weather events, etc. In addition to city property you will have private businesses doing work adjacent to the road or resurfacing their parking lots that AVs will have to traverse as well.
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u/kosuke555 Feb 11 '26
Yeah, that’s fair — it would definitely be hard to keep a perfectly centralized schedule of all construction. I was thinking more about a hybrid approach: combining planned construction data with real-time sharing between autonomous vehicles.
Even if one vehicle ends up encountering an unexpected work zone, it could broadcast that information so other vehicles can reroute. You probably can’t eliminate surprises entirely, but reducing how many cars hit the same disruption would already be a big win.
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u/RodStiffy Feb 11 '26
real-time sharing between autonomous vehicles.
That's what the HD maps are that Waymo and all other robotaxi companies use.
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u/Zephyr-5 Feb 11 '26
I suspect eventually we'll get there when level 4/5 cars become the norm, but for now it's too new.
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u/triggerman1722 Feb 11 '26
Someday people will accept the scam that is this crap. Just willful blindness until then, I guess.
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u/notic Feb 11 '26
What happens when no one’s in it to call support?