Your turn in the spotlight, Avride.
Uber rolled out its Avride robotaxis in Dallas last December, but now, Avride’s automated driving system (ADS) is being investigated after several crashes, officials say.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA), the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) received multiple reports of automated vehicles crashing while Avride’s ADS was engaged in both Dallas and Austin.
“Each of the crashes involved the competence of the ADS with respect to performing at least one of the following driving behaviors: changing lanes, responding to other vehicles present in or entering the lane ahead, and responding to stationary objects partially obstructing the lane ahead,” NHTSA said in a statement.
ODI has preliminarily reviewed videos of every crash, officials said, showing instances of the vehicles changing lanes into the paths of other cars, failing to stop or slow for stopped or slowed vehicles ahead of them, failing to avoid vehicles entering their lane ahead of them, and colliding into stationary objects partially in the lane or path.
According to NHTSA, these crashes have caused property damage and one reported minor injury.
“During each of these crashes, the AVs were operating with the ADS performing the dynamic driving task while under the supervision of an in-vehicle operator in the driver’s seat,” NHTSA said. “The ADS performance in these crashes may indicate inappropriate assertiveness and insufficient competence to execute these driving behaviors in a safe manner and may also constitute traffic safety violations.”
ODI’s preliminary evaluation into the Avride ADS will determine the scope, severity and nature of potential problems and assess possible safety risks to passengers and others on the road, NHTSA said.
See here for the background. TechCrunch has some more info.
Avride, best known for its sidewalk delivery robots, is a subsidiary of Nebius, formerly Yandex NV, the Netherlands-based company that sold off its Russian business in 2024. The company has also spent years developing and testing self-driving cars, and struck a partnership with Uber in 2024. The following year, Uber and its parent company Nebius agreed to make “strategic investments and other commitments” to Avride worth up to $375 million.
The investigation comes just a few months after Uber started offering rides in Avride robotaxis in Dallas, Texas, which is where “many of the reported crashes have occurred,” according to the ODI. Some of the crashes also occurred in Austin, Texas. At least one of the reported crashes involved a robotaxi carrying a passenger
The probe arrives amid expanded testing, deployment, and scaling of autonomous vehicle technologies by numerous companies across the United States, drawing increased scrutiny.
Waymo is currently being investigated by both NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board for illegal behavior around school buses, and for a January crash in which one of the Alphabet-owned company’s robotaxis struck a child.
The ODI said on Friday that it completed a preliminary review of videos of each Avride crash. These videos, according to the office, show “instances of the AVs changing lanes into the path of or directly into other vehicles traveling in an adjacent lane and in close proximity to an AV; failing to slow or stop for slow-moving or stopped vehicles in the lane and path ahead; failing to slow for or avoid vehicles entering the lane and path ahead; and striking stationary objects partially obstructing the lane and path ahead.”
The crash that caused a minor injury happened in December 2025 in Dallas, according to data filed with the NHTSA. It involved an Avride-equipped Hyundai Ioniq 5 that clipped the open driver’s side door of a parked pickup truck. One of the truck’s occupants sustained a minor injury that did not require hospitalization.
Another December crash in Dallas involved an Avride robotaxi that tried to change lanes to avoid a parked pickup truck, according to data filed with the NHTSA. The Avride vehicle turned into a van that was beside it, resulting in damage to both vehicles.
These seem like pretty basic operational issues, which makes me wonder just how much time these things had spent in testing before they were deployed. One also winders why the safety drivers didn’t intervene. The whole point of these things is that they’re supposed to be safer than human drivers. I’m sure they’ll get there eventually, but so far they’re not making a great case for themselves. At least this time we know there’s an investigation going on, so perhaps we’ll learn some more about it. Yahoo News and the Dallas Observer have more.