EVwire brief: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an investigation into robotaxi firm Avride after identifying 16 crashes involving the company’s autonomous driving system, including one incident that resulted in a minor injury.
Avride stated that it has already introduced updates to its robotaxi fleet in response to the incidents.
According to the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), the crashes involved issues related to lane changes, responses to nearby vehicles, and reactions to stationary obstacles. At least one reported crash involved a robotaxi carrying a passenger.
All incidents occurred while the vehicles were operating with human safety monitors in the driver’s seat.
All the incidents happened with a human safety monitor on board
Context:
As per the ODI, “many of the reported crashes” involving Avride’s vehicles happened in Dallas, Texas. Some incidents also took place in Austin.
The ODI said it reviewed videos of each incident and identified cases involving autonomous vehicles changing lanes into nearby traffic, failing to slow for stopped vehicles, and hitting stationary objects.
One December 2025 crash in Dallas involved an Avride-equipped Hyundai Ioniq 5 striking the open door of a parked pickup truck and resulting in a minor injury that required no hospitalization.
Avride’s robotaxis can be hailed through Uber
Another incident involved an Avride vehicle attempting to avoid a parked truck before colliding with a nearby van during a lane change maneuver. Avride was founded in 2020 as a spin-off from Yandex's self-driving car group, developing both autonomous vehicles and small sidewalk delivery robots.
The company partnered with Uber in 2024, bringing its delivery robots to Uber Eats and its self-driving cars to the Uber ride-hailing platform.
In 2025, Uber and Avride's parent company Nebius together committed strategic investments and commercial commitments worth up to $375 million to scale Avride's autonomous fleet.
Avride’s robotaxi fleet hit 200 vehicles as of late April
Avride says it implemented mitigations following reported crashes
Avride stated that it has already introduced updates to its robotaxi fleet in response to the incidents.
The company issued the following statement:
“We have implemented targeted technical and operational mitigations to address our findings from each reported incident between December 2025 and March 2026, and have further enhanced overall system capabilities.
“Our total operations have continued to grow, while the frequency of incidents relative to our mileage has steadily declined.”
Source: TechCrunch
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