Tesla's robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, has experienced 14 crashes in its first eight months of operation, according to federal reports. This rate equates to a collision every 57,000 miles, four times more frequent than for human drivers. The incidents include contacts with vehicles, objects, a cyclist, an animal, and a city bus, with one resulting in hospitalization.
Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June 2025, operating a fleet of 43 vehicles that has covered approximately 800,000 miles. Federal data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicates 14 separate crash incidents during this period. The company's reporting details collisions with five other vehicles, five fixed objects, one cyclist, one animal, and two categorized as "other." One incident involved a collision with a city bus, and another was a two-mile-per-hour impact with an SUV.
Human drivers, by comparison, experience a minor incident every 229,000 miles and a major collision every 699,000 miles, per Tesla's research. NHTSA data shows an average driver incident requiring police involvement every 500,000 miles. Thus, the robotaxi fleet's crash rate of one every 57,000 miles is 4.018 times higher than that of human-driven vehicles.
Safety monitors have been present in the vehicles, capable of intervening with an emergency stop button to prevent incidents. Of the 14 crashes, five were reported in December 2025 and January 2026, accounting for 36% of the total and suggesting no improvement over time. A July 2025 crash initially reported as "property damage only" was updated in December to "minor with hospitalization," raising questions about Tesla's reporting practices, which include redactions.
The fleet consists of 42 available vehicles, with operational availability under 20% of hours. Tesla's CEO has claimed the vision-only self-driving system is significantly safer than human drivers and that the fleet would expand to hundreds of vehicles across half the country by now, but current operations remain limited to parts of Austin and another city.
