Tesla Says Its Robotaxis Can Be Steered Remotely in Rare Cases, Drawing Scrutiny

The human hands behind the robots

A batch of letters sent by autonomous-vehicle companies to Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts is offering one of the clearest looks yet at the human side of robot vehicle operations. The documents, submitted as part of Markey’s investigation into self-driving technology and released Tuesday, include new details from seven companies, among them Tesla, Amazon-owned Zoox, and Nuro, which is funded by Uber and Nvidia, about their remote assistance programs.

Every company that responded said it relies on remote assistants, the people tasked with helping autonomous vehicles when they get confused, stuck, or hit an emergency. Experts say those programs are a basic safety backstop for a technology that is getting better every year but will still encounter unfamiliar situations on roads for the foreseeable future. Progress, unfortunately, has not yet eliminated the need for a human to say, in effect, “let me take a look.”

Markey’s own report, also released Tuesday, said the companies still did not provide enough information. He wrote that “every autonomous-vehicle company refused to disclose how often their AVs require assistance from [remote assistants]” and accused them of hiding “key information from the public about their AV’s true level of autonomy.” That information, he said, is essential for lawmakers, regulators, and the public to understand the safety risks.

Markey urged the country’s top federal road safety regulator to dig deeper into remote assistance programs. He also said he plans to introduce legislation soon in response to the “safety gaps” his investigation uncovered.

Tesla’s version of remote assistance

The companies’ responses show that Tesla is unusual in one crucial way. Six of the firms said their remote assistance staff, who work across the US and, in Waymo’s case, in the Philippines, never directly drive the vehicles. Instead, they give the software input and the vehicle decides whether to use it.

Tesla described a different setup.

“As a redundancy measure in rare cases … [remote assistance operators] are authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control as the final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention actions have been exhausted,” Karen Steakley, Tesla’s director of public policy and business development, wrote to Markey.

According to Steakley, Tesla’s remote assistance workers can “take temporary control of the vehicle” at speeds of up to, or less than, 2 mph. They can also remotely drive a Tesla Robotaxi at up to 10 mph if the vehicle’s software allows it. That, she said, lets Tesla quickly move a vehicle that is in a “compromising position.”

Tesla has shifted much of its focus from car sales to autonomous vehicle technology and robots. It launched a small ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, last June. Most of the roughly 50 robotaxis operating now have human safety operators in the front passenger seat, ready to intervene if needed, though a few reportedly run without them. Tesla says its remote assistants are based in Austin and Palo Alto, California.

Why companies usually avoid direct remote driving

Most autonomous-vehicle developers steer clear of having humans directly drive vehicles from afar, and the reasons are pretty practical. Even a delay of a few hundred milliseconds between what the remote assistant sees and what is happening on the road can slow reaction time. Add network latency, and the risk goes up. As one self-driving engineer told WIRED last year, “Your ability to drive a car without being in the car is only as stable as the internet connection that connects you to it.”

That concern applies even to companies that do not allow direct remote driving. In January, federal investigators found that a Waymo remote assistant incorrectly told an Austin-based AV that it could illegally pass a school bus with its stop arm extended.

There is also the matter of awareness. A remote assistant who is actually operating a vehicle needs immediate, complete situational awareness and controls that feel natural even if the car is a thousand miles away. Some in the industry worry about a deeper problem too: if a self-driving vehicle is driven by humans even occasionally, then it is still depending on humans in a way that raises obvious questions about how autonomous it really is.

“As the truck is driving down the road, it needs to be able to operate safely with or without those remote support people,” Chris Urmson, CEO of the self-driving trucking company Aurora and a veteran of Google’s self-driving-car project, has said.

Markey said Tesla’s refusal to explain how often its remote assistants take over is “especially concerning” because those workers are allowed to teleoperate the vehicle.

Missy Cummings, a George Mason University engineering professor who studies autonomous vehicles and recently wrote about remote assistance, said companies have every reason to keep those numbers quiet.

“Companies don’t want to give those numbers, because then it would make it clear how not-capable these systems really are,” she said. “If people understood how often [the assistants] were interacting, then it would be clear how far away truly autonomous vehicles are.”

What the other companies said

Steakley wrote that answering some of Markey’s questions “would necessarily reveal highly sensitive trade secrets and confidential business practices” that are “fundamental to maintaining [Tesla’s] competitive position in the AV industry.” Tesla, which disbanded its public relations team in 2020, did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Waymo had already released its response to Markey earlier this year. Ryan McNamara, the company’s vice president and global head of operations, wrote that Waymo’s remote assistance agents “provide advice and support to the Waymo Driver but do not directly control, steer, or drive the vehicle.”

Waymo said at least 70 assistants are working at any given time to monitor about 3,000 robotaxis across 10 US cities. It also said half of its remote assistance workers are based in two cities in the Philippines, where they are licensed to drive locally but trained in US road rules.

Markey’s office said that “overseas remote assistance introduces unnecessary risk to Waymo’s operations” and added that no other AV company is taking that approach.

Waymo and Nuro declined to comment. Zoox did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.