Tesla’s robotaxi rollout has been rockier than the fanboys and influencers who got early access to the company’s driverless vehicles would like you to believe. And thanks to these diligent Redditors, we now have a list of all the mistakes the company’s “unsupervised” vehicles have made in the first couple days.
Several incidents involve “phantom braking,” in which the vehicle stops suddenly for seemingly no reason. Tesla’s camera-only perception system has long had problems with phantom braking, appearing to misinterpret shadows, road marking, or other environmental factors, which triggers the vehicle’s automatic emergency braking. The Reddit list includes three incidents of phantom braking.
Here’s the other incidents that have cropped up so far:
Tesla has said it’s gathering feedback from riders on how to improve the robotaxi service. Some early riders posted their thoughts on X, but mostly around improving the app experience. (The app doesn’t allow you to adjust your pickup location, nor does it let you drop a pin in the service area for a more precise drop-off.) Sawyer Merritt, an X user who posts pro-Tesla content, said he didn’t experience any problems in his 20 rides over two days. “No interventions, no critical safety issues. All my rides were smooth and comfortable,” he wrote.
But the above list suggests that not everyone’s experience was so seamless. Also, the only way we know about any of these incidents is because robotaxi customers are documenting their rides and posting them on social media. Texas doesn’t require any incident reporting or data sharing from Tesla — though the state did recently approve a new permitting system that could prove to be more difficult for the company to navigate. One provision allows state regulators to revoke permits if a company’s autonomous vehicles are deemed a safety risk.
Keep in mind, these are the incidents that cropped up among a small fleet of 10-20 vehicles in just three days of semi-public availability. Musk has said he wants thousands of vehicles on the road within months, and perhaps “a million” by the end of next year. Imagine what the list looks like at that point.
