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.
Tesla reported the crashes last month, covering incidents from December 2025 and January. All five involved Tesla Model Y vehicles operating in Austin with autonomous driving systems engaged.
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.
Electrek also reports that Tesla has now submitted data for 14 total crashes since the robotaxi service began operating in Austin last June. Based on Tesla’s fourth-quarter earnings report, which showed the fleet reached roughly 700,000 cumulative paid miles through November, the outlet estimates the fleet likely surpassed 800,000 miles by mid-January. With 14 crashes in that time period, that comes out to roughly one crash every 57,000 miles.
Even by Tesla’s own metrics, that’s not great.
Tesla’s Vehicle Safety Report claims the average U.S. driver experiences a minor crash every 229,000 miles and a major collision every 699,000 miles. By that comparison, Tesla’s robotaxi fleet appears to be crashing at a rate roughly four times higher than the average driver.
Tesla also appears less transparent than its competitors when it comes to crash reporting. Unlike Waymo and Zoox, Tesla has redacted the incident narratives for each crash in the NHTSA database, citing “confidential business information.”
Additionally, Electrek reports that Tesla updated a crash report from July that was originally filed as “property damage only” and now lists the incident as “Minor w/ Hospitalization,” indicating someone later required hospital treatment.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.
The EV giant isn’t the only company facing scrutiny over its self-driving systems.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently opened a probe into a January incident in which a Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school during drop-off hours.
In announcing the investigation, NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation said it would examine whether Waymo “exercised appropriate caution” given the vehicle’s proximity to a school and the presence of young pedestrians. Last month, the agency also launched a separate probe after reports that Waymo vehicles failed to stop for school buses.
Source: gizmodo.com
