According to documents released by Senator Edward Markey, Tesla admitted there are rare cases where its autonomous vehicles are driven by remote workers. The senator published responses from Tesla and six other autonomous vehicle companies as part of an investigation into their use of remote assistance operators, and he released a report detailing his findings. Karen Steakley, Tesla's director of public policy and business development, stated that Tesla uses remote assistance operators to help when a rider or the car's autonomous driving system requests assistance.
She explained that these operators can take control of the vehicle, such as a robotaxi, in certain circumstances, and they are authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control as a final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention actions have been exhausted. Steakley added that remote assistance operators can only take temporary control when the car is driving at 2 mph or slower, and if given direct access, they can drive at speeds up to 10 mph. Tesla's remote assistance operators are in-house employees who work at centers in Austin, Texas, and Palo Alto, California.
As a redundancy measure in rare cases, however, RAOs are authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control as the final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention actions have been exhausted.
The company is currently offering autonomous vehicle rides in Austin, Texas, accessible through its Robotaxi app. Senator Markey criticized the lack of transparency, emphasizing that Tesla's admission makes it important for the company to be transparent about the frequency of interventions. It remains unknown how often remote assistance operators intervene in Tesla's autonomous vehicles or what specific circumstances trigger control beyond the described speed limits.
This capability enables Tesla to promptly move a vehicle that may be in a compromising position, thereby mitigating the need to wait for a first responder or Tesla field representative to manually recover the vehicle.
The Palo Alto RAOs are charged with providing an added layer of redundancy to the Austin service.