Self-driving cars are often marketed as safer than human drivers, but new data suggests that may not always be the case.
Citing data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Electrek reports that Tesla disclosed five new crashes involving its robotaxi fleet in Austin. The new data raises concerns about how safe Tesla’s systems really are compared to the average driver.
The incidents included a collision with a fixed object at 17 miles per hour, a crash with a bus while the Tesla vehicle was stopped, a crash with a truck at four miles per hour, and two cases where Tesla vehicles backed into fixed objects at low speeds.
Searching for “Waymo human overseas” brings up results about it. Doing similar for Telsa isn’t finding anything. Also I’ve not heard about like I have with Waymo. I don’t think Waymo are wrong to do this at all. It not making a decision when unsure is safer.
Waymo has a capability for remote control of their cars in niche situations. They don’t do it all the time like Tesla has been doing. It is for when they get boxed in to a street by moving trucks and the only way to move past is to break a driving rule like passing in a no passing zone. They have one remote driver for every 40 cars. Tesla has one remote driver for every one car.
You got a link for those numbers? Very damning if true. 40x the humans and still worse stats?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2026/02/17/waymo-overseas-human-assist-wasnt-secret-but-is-it-secure/
“It turns out Waymo has about one remote assistance operator for every 40 vehicles.”
https://www.t3.com/auto/teslas-first-robotaxis-are-actually-manned-by-humans
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/tesla-robotaxis-crash-higher-humans/
“Making the numbers look even worse for Tesla, “virtually every single one of these miles was driven with a trained safety monitor in the vehicle who could intervene at any moment, which means they likely prevented more crashes that Tesla’s system wouldn’t have avoided.””
Fair enough. Doesn’t surprise me Telsa are more hot air and bluster then Waymo.