Tesla remote operators keep crashing its ‘Robotaxis,’ data shows

This is a story about Tesla's robotaxi service, not home energy upgrades, so there is not much here that touches your house directly. Federal crash data shows that when a remote human operator takes over driving a Tesla "Robotaxi" from afar, the car has crashed every time this has happened and shown up in the records — five takeovers, five collisions. Two new cases from August, in Dallas and Austin, involved Model Ys hitting a parked SUV and a dumpster at walking speed while a remote operator was steering. No one was hurt in any of the five incidents, and the damage has been minor — bumpers, a fence, a tree stump.

Tesla has not said how often remote operators step in, so there is no way to know the odds of a crash when they do. Waymo, a competing robotaxi company, says it does not let remote staff actually steer its cars; they can only offer guidance the vehicle's own system accepts or rejects, with one narrow exception capped at a slow crawl that it says has never been used on public roads.

For homeowners, this is mostly background on how self-driving taxi services work out their kinks, not something that affects an energy upgrade or your electric bill. It is worth knowing only if you are weighing whether to use or invest in robotaxi services in your area.