Rider says Tesla robotaxi says “safety driver” fell asleep repeatedly—and the company ignored their report

A San Francisco rider says their Tesla robotaxi experience took a disturbing turn when the vehicle’s human “safety driver” repeatedly fell asleep during the trip.

The passenger posted a video to Reddit showing the worker slumped forward until the car’s built-in alert system beeped him awake.

After claiming to have reported the incident and received no response from Tesla for over a week, the rider went public on Monday.

Tesla robotaxi safety driver caught nodding off

In a viral Reddit post on the official San Francisco subreddit, u/ohmichael wrote that they usually feel safer in one of the city's Tesla robotaxis than in a human-operated rideshare, but this ride was the exception.

"The safety driver literally fell asleep at least three times during the ride. Each time the car’s pay attention safety alert went off and the beeping is what woke him back up," they said. "I reported it through the app to the Robotaxi support team and told them I had videos, but I never got a response."

"I held off on posting anything because I wanted to give Tesla a chance to respond privately. It has been more than a week now and this feels like a serious issue for other riders too."

Tesla launched its robotaxi service with the assistance of so-called "safety drivers" back in June, when the company was unable to deliver fully autonomous vehicles by its self-imposed deadline. These workers initially rode along in the passenger seat, but soon moved behind the wheel.

The issue of these "drivers" staying awake might not remain relevant for long if CEO Elon Musk didn't have a reputation for missing his deadlines. In September, he tweeted that the safety monitors, who were there to "be extra safe," would be gone by the end of the year.

"What do you expect?"

In the Reddit comments, fellow San Francisco residents encouraged the OP to report the incident to the California Public Utilities Commission (SPUC), and they said they did so, hoping to prevent this from happening again. One Redditor even claimed they had the same driver with the same problem.

"Dude! This was my driver too! I already reported him to Tesla. Wtf??" u/itsmeagain24 wrote. "It was 7am driving from Temescal to SF. Took an hour with traffic and it was just this the entire time."

Another reported a different but equally unsafe safety driver.

"Mine (different person) was also dozing off," claimed u/inb4ohnoes. "I have video evidence as well and reported it but I won’t post it for privacy reasons without redacting their face."

Less sympathetic commenters loudly wondered why anyone would trust a Tesla robotaxi or anything else associated with Musk.

"It’s f*cking Tesla. What do you expect?" asked u/Gustaves_Mustache. "Do you think any company run by Elon f*cking Musk is gonna prioritize your safety and care that you have videos when acting on them might cosy [sic] them money, social support, and market political capital?"

The Daily Dot has reached out to u/ohmichael via Reddit and Tesla via email.

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