While Tesla would have you believe that its debut of robotaxis on Sunday went ahead flawlessly, the emerging video evidence is increasingly negating this view. And now, the NHTSA has apparently deemed these violations serious enough to contact Tesla, as per a report by Bloomberg.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, we flagged a seemingly serious traffic law violation by a Tesla robotaxi yesterday, where a 12-second clip showed the robotaxi repeatedly trying to swerve into the wrong lane. What's more, the vehicle then entered the lane for the oncoming traffic, before returning to its correct lane by crossing a double-yellow line.
Moreover, another footage recorded by the Tesla influencer Sawyer Merritt showed a robotaxi accelerating to 35 mph in a 30 mph zone.
Of course, Tesla had tried its best to avoid these embarrassing, safety-critical gaffes by stationing an employee in the front passenger seat of each robotaxi, with easy access to the "emergency stop" and "pull over" commands via the vehicle's bespoke UI.
Also, in what was to serve as the ultimate guardrail, each robotaxi trip is currently being monitored by a team of teleoperators who can presumably take over in case of an emergency.
This development comes as Tesla has now formally asked the NHTSA to keep its responses to a robotaxi-focused questionnaire confidential.
Bear in mind that, despite all the hype surrounding Tesla's FSD, it is still widely considered a Level 2 autonomous driving system, as opposed to Waymo's, which is classified as a Level 4 system.
Waymo's service is currently available in Phoenix (Arizona), Los Angeles (California), San Francisco (California), and Austin (Texas) via a fleet of around 1,500 Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, with each such vehicle equipped with an expensive array of sensors, including LiDAR, 360-degree view cameras, and a radar, all feeding into onboard compute resources.
On the other hand, Tesla leverages an interconnected neural network along with cameras that are supposedly capable of counting individual photons, although some experts doubt that Tesla's cameras are capable of this feat.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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