Nowadays, Austin, Texas feels as a ground -like for autonomous cars. Although California was the early test bed for autonomous driving technology, the much more tolerant regulatory environment in the Lone Star State, plus a lot of broad, straight roads and usually good weather, tapped enough compartments to see companies such as Waymo and ZOX there. And earlier this summer Tesla joined the list. Except that things have not gone just right.
According to Tesla's crash reports, spotted by Brad Templeton at Forbes, the automaker experienced not one but three crashes, all apparently on the first test day on July 1. And as we learned from Tesla CEO Elon Musk later in July during the (non-great) quarterly profit, profit call, Tesla had a Mere 7,000 kilometers in testing.
The crash speed of Waymo, on the other hand, more than two orders of size is lower, with 60 crashes registered more than 50 million miles. (Waymo has now recorded more than 96 million miles.)
Two of the three Tesla-Crashes concerned another car that was the model Y behind the rear, and at least one of these crashes was almost certainly not the fault of the Tesla. But the third crash saw a model Y – with the required safety operator on board – together with a stationary object at low speed, which resulted in a slight injury. Templeton also notes that there was a fourth crash that took place in a parking lot and was therefore not reported. Unfortunately, most details in the crash reports are edited by Tesla.
