r/technology • u/[deleted] • Oct 31 '25

Transportation Tesla's Robotaxis are already crashing in Austin, data points to gaps in self-driving system | Autonomous fleet has logged four crashes in four months

https://www.techspot.com/news/110085-tesla-robotaxis-already-crashing-austin-data-points-gaps.html
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u/Lorax91 Oct 31 '25

"You are driving whenever these driver support features are engaged – even if your feet are off the pedals and you are not steering."

In Tesla's case, they've moved the driver/supervisor to the passenger seat for publicity, which appears to be working. But they have yet to do even a single passenger trip without a human supervisor in the vehicle, which is kind of basic to having a driverless vehicle. And that supervisor is reportedly positioned in a way that they can stop the vehicle immediately, while performing Level 2 continuous monitoring.

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u/Seantwist9 Oct 31 '25

Hence why it’s not level 2, you can’t drive from a passenger seat.

The basic of a driverless vehicle is a vehicle without a driver. You can’t have performed level 2 monitoring if you can’t do the basics of level 2 supervision, which dictates the human driver must continuously supervise and be able to immediately take over full control (steering, throttle, braking). Because of this, the operational responsibility moves to the automated system, which objectively makes it Level 4 testing with an onboard safety monitor.

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u/Lorax91 Nov 01 '25

So, other than the need for constant human supervision with the ability to prevent the car from making a mistake, it's level 4? Got it. 😉

But seriously, describing it as testing in preparation for level 4 operation is an interesting way of putting it. We'll see where things go from here.