"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into Avride, Uber's autonomous vehicle partner, after identifying 16 crashes and one minor injury in the four months since the company launched its robotaxi service in Dallas. The regulator's language is unusually blunt: the vehicles displayed " excessive assertiveness and insufficient capability," a phrase that could describe not just Avride's self-driving system but the broader industry's determination to deploy autonomous vehicles before they can reliably avoid hitting things."
"The crashes, which occurred between December 2025 and March 2026, involved Avride's fleet of Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles changing lanes into the path of other cars, failing to slow or stop for slow-moving and stationary vehicles, and striking objects in the road. All incidents occurred with a safety monitor sitting in the driver's seat. In only one of the 16 reported crashes did the safety monitor attempt to intervene."
"Avride is a subsidiary of Nebius, the Amsterdam-based technology company that emerged from the restructuring of Yandex NV after the Russian internet giant sold its domestic business in 2024. Yandex founder Arkady Volozh launched Nebius with 1,300 employees, 2.5 billion dollars in cash, and businesses spanning data infrastructure, edtech, and autonomous driving. Avride inherited Yandex's self-driving technology, which had been in development since 2017."
"Uber announced its partnership with Avride in October 2024, and the companies launched a robotaxi service in a nine-square-mile section of downtown Dallas on 3 December 2025. Uber and Nebius committed up to 375 million dollars in investment to scale Avride's fleet to 500 vehicles. Avride also operates sidewalk delivery robots on Uber Eats in Austin, Dallas, and Jersey City, and on Grubhub at university campuses including Ohio State."
NHTSA opened an investigation into Avride, Uber’s autonomous vehicle partner, after 16 crashes and one minor injury occurred in four months since robotaxi service began in Dallas. The regulator described the vehicles as showing “excessive assertiveness and insufficient capability.” Reported crashes from December 2025 to March 2026 involved lane changes into other cars’ paths, failure to slow or stop for slow-moving or stationary vehicles, and striking objects in the road. All incidents occurred with a safety monitor in the driver’s seat, and intervention happened in only one crash. Avride is a Nebius subsidiary, inheriting self-driving technology developed since 2017. Uber and Nebius invested up to $375 million to scale the fleet to 500 vehicles.
Read at TNW | Cars
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