- A Tesla Robotaxi had its first-ever collision over the weekend.
- The minor impact involved a Robotaxi making an awkward and unprompted turn into a parked car.
- Thankfully, the damage seems either minor or non-existent.
We all knew that this moment would happen eventually, but the only surprise was just how incredibly on-brand it was. Over the July 4 holiday weekend, Tesla’s much-hyped, vision-only Robotaxi program has officially logged its first crash. And, because nothing in Tesla’s storybook can be just normal, it involved the Robotaxi gently bumping into a parked car.
Not moving, not merging. Just sitting there, minding its own business until Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software drove it fully into the car’s door to give it a gentle tap with the Robotaxi’s tire, according to accounts posted on social media channels.
The crash comes via a first-hand report from a Tesla influencer named Chris (he goes by the moniker DirtyTesla online). Chris has been trialing out the Robotaxi program quite a bit and sharing his thoughts on the program. He then documented this crash and even posted a video on YouTube showing the impact.
According to Chris, the Robotaxi had some issues navigating into the parking lot of a local pizza joint called Home Slice Pizza. After unsuccessfully attempting to enter the parking lot, the car gave up and ended the ride. It dropped him off on the side of the entrance to the parking lot and Chris began filming once he exited the car.
As the video shows, the Tesla inexplicably turned its wheels and began driving straight towards a Toyota Camry parked just inches away from it.
The clip showing the slight impact starts just after 4:50
Chris originally believed that the safety driver was able to intervene before the vehicle made contact. But as he later pointed out on CEO Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, that wasn’t the case, and the tire lightly kissed the parked Toyota Camry’s door. It then came to a complete stop and put on its hazard lights.
Normally, this is the kind of accident where you can apologize with a note, and your insurance information, under the windshield wiper of the car you tapped. But this is actually a rather symbolic incident. It’s the first observed incident involving Tesla’s Robotaxi program, and it happened less than two weeks from the date that its limited pilot began.
Musk originally claimed that these Robotaxis wouldn’t have anyone in the front seat and began hiring a number of remote teleoperators in preparation for its launch. However, as riders quickly found out, there was indeed a safety operator in the car, but in the passenger seat rather than behind the wheel. Musk said that the automaker was being “super paranoid” about safety—and it’s clear that the brand has a reason to be.
See, a basic collision avoidance system should be able to spot a parked object. It’s kind of the entire purpose of things like ultrasonic sensors, which Tesla opted to remove from its cars in favor of a vision-only based system in 2022. Perhaps the Camry was in a blind spot, or maybe the vision system just had a hiccup. Either way, this is a rookie-level mistake that makes it seem like the Robotaxis are swimming in the kiddie pool while Waymo is already doing laps around the deep end.
Thankfully, this tiny crash wasn’t a terrifying highway-speed collision like some of the other headlines we’ve seen for Full Self-Driving, but it’s also not a great sign for Tesla when its system has been dinged for driving like a teenager over the past few weeks and alredy has the attention of the Feds.
Can Tesla improve? Sure, but if this really simple crash is an indication of how things are progressing in such a short period of time, it sure seems like we’re going to hit some speed bumps—and maybe some parked cars—along the way. Hopefully, it won’t be anything more than that.