News
Tesla Model S Plaid totaled by Service Center employee, leaving owner without answers
Update 9/9/22 12:32 P.M. EST: Jeff contacted me personally and told me Tesla has officially shipped a Model S Plaid identical to his now-totaled vehicle. “I just got a call from Tesla, a clone of my Model S Plaid is on the truck heading for Texas as I text you today.”
A $155,000 Tesla Model S Plaid was totaled several days after the owner dropped the vehicle off for a Service appointment. Now, the owner is attempting to find answers.
After dropping his Model S Plaid with only a few thousand miles off at the Plano, Texas Tesla Service Center on Wednesday, August 24, owner Jeff said he received a call on Tuesday, August 30, from an employee. “We have some bad news,” Jeff heard over the phone. “Your car was totaled.”
“I thought it was a joke,” Jeff told Teslarati in an interview. “I found out very soon it was not a joke.”
After arriving at the Service Center the next day, on Wednesday, August 31, Jeff found his black Model S Plaid in the parking lot. The rear passenger door smashed in, and visibility into the vehicle was limited due to many airbags in the car being deployed. The vehicle had been t-boned by another car traveling just two blocks from the Service Center, located at 5800 Democracy Drive in Plano. The repair had already been completed and an employee was driving the vehicle around to ensure it was completed properly.
- Credit: Teslarati
- Credit: Teslarati
However, the driver of the Model S Plaid, a 31-year-old employee of the Plano Service Center, failed to yield the right of way at a stop sign and was hit by another car. The Model S Plaid was totaled in the accident.
Initially, Jeff was interested in receiving a new car, of course, and there happened to be an exact match of what his Plaid Model S once was at another showroom in the State. He was offered that vehicle on Wednesday, but by Thursday, that had changed. Tesla said they would likely go through insurance, meaning it would take nearly three weeks to get Jeff his vehicle.
The Legalities of the Situation
Teslarati spoke to insurance experts and liability attorneys, who told us the situation in which the vehicle was totaled and determining liability is what truly matters. The fact that this is a customer’s car and an employee crashed it is irrelevant until liability is determined.
We obtained the police report through the City of Plano, which revealed the employee at the Tesla Service Center was at fault. Jeff also told us that when he spoke to the employee driving the vehicle at the time of the accident, they admitted that the accident was his fault.
The report states that the driver of the Model S was officially charged with Failure to Yield the Right of Way at a Stop Sign. The investigating officer describes the accident in the report:
“UNIT 1 WAS STOPPED AT A STOP SIGN IN LANE 2 E/B DEMOCRACY DRIVE FOR PARKWOOD BLVD. UNIT 1 THEN PROCEEDED THROUGH THE INTERSECTION. UNIT 2 WAS N/B PARKWOOD BLVD IN THE RIGHT LANE. DUE TO UNIT 1 FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT OF WAY AT A STOP SIGN TO UNIT 2, THE FRONT END OF UNIT 2 STRUCK THE RIGHT BACK QUARTER OF UNIT 1.”

Illustration of the accident: Unit 1 is the Tesla Model S, while Unit 2 is the Audi A5. Unit 1 is the vehicle at fault, City of Plano officials told Teslarati. (Credit: Teslarati)
The report, obtained by Teslarati, shows there was a second occupant in the Tesla at the time of the crash. The driver is 33. The passenger is 31. Additionally, the Audi A5 that collided with the Tesla was being driven by a 62-year-old who was taken to Plano Presbyterian Hospital.
What’s Next
Tesla has been tight-lipped to Jeff, saying they would be in touch with him regarding the accident within the next three weeks. Tesla may have been attempting to determine liability as its employee who was driving the vehicle may not necessarily be responsible for the accident, especially considering he was t-boned while navigating through an intersection. However, the report filed by the investigating officer determined that the driver of the Tesla was at fault, and the fact that the employee also expressed to Jeff that the accident was his fault would eliminate Tesla’s need to determine this.
Jeff said Tesla has not offered a loaner or a formal replacement vehicle currently, which makes his situation much more complicated. Teslarati reported last month that Tesla had abolished its policy of offering loaners and Uber credits for some service appointments. However, Jeff’s vehicle is totaled, he is without a replacement, and the accident did not happen while he was driving the car, or even in possession of the Model S Plaid.
As of Tuesday, September 6, Tesla has yet to contact Jeff regarding the accident or any information on a replacement vehicle.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Elon Musk
Tesla Cybercabs narrowly miss deadly Amazon cargo plane crash
An Amazon cargo plane crash near Miami’s airport stopped feet from dozens of Tesla Cybercabs.
An Amazon Prime Air Boeing 767 cargo jet overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, killing five people and injuring five more. The jet, operated by North Carolina based carrier 21 Air as Flight 7598, touched down around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico, then crossed the airport perimeter, plowed across NW 67th Avenue and struck multiple vehicles before catching fire, according to the Associated Press.
Photos and video from the scene show the aircraft’s nose stopped within meters of a fenced staging lot holding dozens of gold painted Tesla Cybercabs, the steering wheel free robotaxi Tesla began putting on public roads in Austin last week. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has confirmed the plane struck “multiple vehicles” but has not said whether any Cybercabs were among them, and neither Tesla nor airport officials have addressed the fleet directly.
The Cybercabs had not yet entered commercial service in Miami. Tesla’s existing Robotaxi operation there runs on modified Model Y vehicles and has been unsupervised since Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the detail on X in July.
Footage of the plane crash from earlier today | #ONLYinDADE pic.twitter.com/iGoOtnd6cD
— ONLY in DADE (@ONLYinDADE) September 6, 2026
Elon Musk offered the briefest of reactions. Replying to a Zero Hedge post about the Cybercabs sitting so close to the wreckage, he wrote a single word: “Weird.” He has not commented further, and Tesla has not issued a statement.
The timing puts Tesla’s newest vehicle near an unrelated but highly visible tragedy just days after its Austin debut, a launch that had already drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit how Tesla certified the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards, a process Teslarati covered after the vehicle’s September 3 launch event. That inquiry concerns the car’s lack of a steering wheel and pedals, not the Miami crash.
Investigators from the FAA and NTSB are focused on the plane, not the parking lot beside it. Flight data reviewed by outlets including Simple Flying show the 767 touched down around 170 knots, well above the 135 to 140 knot range typical for the aircraft, though investigators have not determined a cause. Amazon said it is working with authorities and that its priority is the safety of everyone affected.
Whether any Cybercabs were damaged, and what Tesla plans for the fleet parked near one of the country’s busiest airports, remain open questions.
News
Tesla crosses major Unsupervised Self-Driving milestone
Tesla has reached a notable benchmark in its autonomous driving program after its Robotaxi fleet surpassed one million miles of unsupervised operation. The company made the announcement during its Cybercab event in Austin on September 3.
Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy told attendees he was happy to report the fleet had achieved one million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation as a testament to safety.
The new total marked a sharp increase from the 380,000 unsupervised miles Tesla disclosed during its second-quarter 2026 earnings update in late July.
In roughly six weeks, the company added about 620,000 miles. That acceleration followed Tesla’s decision to remove in-vehicle safety monitors from most of its operations outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

Credit: Tesla
Tesla first launched Robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 with safety drivers present. It later began fully unsupervised rides and expanded into Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. The San Francisco Bay Area remains the exception, where a safety monitor still rides in the vehicle under California permitting rules.
The company has not released a city-by-city breakdown of the one million unsupervised miles.
The milestone arrived as Tesla began offering public Cybercab rides in Austin. The purpose-built vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is designed only for autonomous ride-hailing. Production versions joined the existing fleet of modified Tesla vehicles already operating in the service.
Tesla’s unsupervised mileage is growing at a double-digit weekly rate according to earlier company comments, yet its fleet size remains modest compared with established competitors. Waymo has accumulated more than 200 million fully autonomous rider-only miles. Tesla has described its own unsupervised operations as having recorded zero notable incidents in the period leading up to the July update.
The one-million-mile figure reflects Tesla’s shift from supervised testing to broader driverless service in multiple states. It also highlights the company’s strategy of using both existing Model Y vehicles and the new Cybercab to scale its network.

Credit: Tesla
Whether the rapid recent growth continues will depend on further city expansions, regulatory approvals, and the performance of the purpose-built Cybercab in everyday paid rides. Tesla has not specified how many of the latest miles involved the new vehicle versus the rest of the fleet.
The announcement underscores Tesla’s progress toward a larger robotaxi network while illustrating the remaining gap in total autonomous experience relative to longer-operating rivals.
News
Tesla Robotaxi will be a 24/7 service: here’s when
Tesla AI lead Ashok Elluswamy said this week that 24-hour Robotaxi service is close. Replying on X to a rider who wanted Cybercab trips all night, he wrote that the capability would arrive “next month or so” once “the next tech to merge on the v15 plan” is ready.
The comment landed on September 4, one day after Tesla opened public Cybercab rides in Austin. It is the clearest near-term timeline yet for overnight unsupervised operation. Tesla’s paid Robotaxi network currently runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week across Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa.
next month or so. the next tech to merge on the v15 plan will enable it.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) September 4, 2026
That 16-hour window is shorter than the 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. schedule the company used for much of the prior year.
Elluswamy did not name the specific feature or say whether the change would apply first to purpose-built Cybercabs, the existing Model Y fleet, or both. He also offered no city-by-city rollout list. The link to Full Self-Driving v15 is nevertheless significant.
Tesla has described v15 as a step-change architecture with seven parallel improvement tracks and roughly ten times more parameters than earlier builds. Early versions of that software already operate on the Robotaxi fleet and contain about 40 percent of the planned gains.
By July 2026, the unsupervised fleet had logged more than 380,000 miles across six cities in two states with what the company called an impeccable safety record and no notable incidents caused by the vehicles themselves. Tesla has repeatedly argued that camera-based end-to-end neural networks, rather than extra sensors, are the core of the solution.
Overnight service would test that claim in lower-light conditions and would also raise vehicle utilization, a key variable for Robotaxi unit economics. The company has already begun using public Superchargers at night and is building dedicated Robotaxi charging sites.
Riders have asked why software must change if the cars already drive in the dark. The practical answer appears to be reliability and scale: Tesla has held back mass expansion until more of the v15 stack is merged, citing the need for higher confidence before putting thousands of unoccupied vehicles on streets around the clock.
If the next module arrives on the timetable Elluswamy sketched, 24-hour service could begin in October 2026 in at least some markets.
That would mark a shift from a daytime-bounded pilot to a service that can run whenever demand exists, including the late-night hours that have so far remained out of reach.

