Two Driverless Waymo Cars Collide at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport

Two driverless Waymo cars collided at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport on Wednesday, but details are incredibly slim as the accident has barely been mentioned on many social media platforms.

The video of the two Waymo vehicles was shared on Reddit’s r/SelfDrivingCars subreddit by u/HIGH_PRESSURE_TOILET (an interesting username), showing the two Jaguar I-PACE EVs at a standstill.

They were still making contact in the video, with one front driver-side quarter panel still in contact with the other’s front passenger door:

🚨 Waymo accident in Arizona at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix: https://t.co/UjyWvu3ZGF pic.twitter.com/Z5ASKMEuXw

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2025

There are relatively no details on the matter, but we reached out to Waymo earlier today, and an employee was able to share the following information.

Waymo told Teslarati that the accident occurred at a low speed, which is evident based on the lack of major damage done to either vehicle. Waymo did not reveal a specific speed at which the accident occurred, but they did mention it was a low speed.

Additionally, there were no passengers inside either vehicle at the time of the crash. The cause of the accident is still unknown, but the company is currently investigating any potential causes and aims to have more answers in the coming days.

This is an expected growing pain of driverless vehicles, as autonomous rides are still in their very early phases. We have seen Waymo vehicles encounter a variety of challenges over the past several years, including getting stuck at construction zones in other cities.

Here’s one example of one nearly driving into a trench:

Waymo self driving car almost drives into a trench at construction site

Waymo is in direct competition with Tesla Robotaxi, which is operating in both Austin, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo operates in both of these areas.

As Waymo updates us with more details, we will share them here and update the article.

Tesla’s Robotaxi service and its newly launched Supercharger Diner are killing a longtime but increasingly dreaded consumer tradition in the United States. Based on videos taken of consumers using the Robotaxi service in the Bay Area, Tesla is still just charging strictly for its services–while asking for zero tips.

Tesla Services with Zero Tips

When Tesla launched the Robotaxi pilot in Austin, users quickly noticed that the company was not allowing riders to leave a tip for the service. If one were to try leaving a tip after a Robotaxi ride, the app simply flashes an image of Tesla’s meme hedgehog mascot with a “Just Kidding” message. 

At the time, this seemed like a small tongue-in-cheek joke from the electric vehicle maker. The initial Robotaxi pilot in Austin was rolled out on a small scale, after all, and some social media users speculated that tipping may eventually just be introduced to the service.

But upon the opening of the Tesla Supercharger Diner, consumers also observed that the facility does not allow tipping. Tesla’s notice is simple: “Gratuity: Tesla covers tipping for staff.” This means that employees who work at the Tesla Diner make enough to not rely on gratuities from consumers. 

And with the launch of the Robotaxi service in the Bay Area, users observed once more that Tesla is still not allowing tipping. This was highlighted by longtime Tesla owner @BLKMDL3, who shared a video of the Tesla Robotaxi app also briefly displaying the hedgehog mascot with a “Just Kidding” message when he tried leaving a tip.

Out of Control

As noted in a report from The Guardian, tipping has been a longstanding business practice in the United States, were service workers typically make less than the federal minimum wage. With this system in place, service workers end up relying on gratuities to make ends meet. This was understandable, but after the pandemic, tipping culture ended up going out of control.

On platforms such as Reddit, users have also complained about services like Uber asking for large tips for using their services. Consumers have also shared shocking experiences involving some services that ask for tips. These include self-checkout counters, drive-throughs, hotdog stands, drug stores, a bottled water stall at a jazz festival, an airport vending machine, a used bookstore, a cinema box office, and a children’s arcade, among others.

Tesla has some tailwinds that could drive it toward a momentum-filled finish to the year, one Wall Street analyst is predicting.

The tailwinds are joined by some minor risks that have impacted the broader electric vehicle market, but overall, this firm believes Tesla has many catalysts moving forward.

Emmanuel Rosner of Wolfe Research believes that Tesla has plenty of things that could drive the stock upward as we approach the end of the year. With Q3 well underway, Tesla has about five months of catalysts to rely on to erase the roughly 18 percent drop in stock price it has so far this year.

At first glance, it is easy to see the things that would have investors bullish on Tesla for the rest of 2025 and even beyond. Initially, the Robotaxi launch and expansion, which spread to Northern California last night, provide potentially huge tailwinds for the company moving forward.

Tesla expands Robotaxi operation to California’s Bay Area

Along with that, and slightly related, are the advancements in Full Self-Driving that the company has made over the past few months.

This includes the potential launch of the FSD suite in regions like Europe and Australia, where the company believes it will make some progress on regulatory approval in the coming months.

Finally, Wolfe says the company’s Optimus project, which is expected to enter scale production sometime next year, is the third catalyst for Tesla moving forward.

With these three projects in motion, Tesla truly can begin to work on rebounding from a rough 2025 on the market.

Rosner writes:

“This name trades more around the narrative than the numbers. And net-net, we tactically see an improving narrative from here. Tesla has several catalysts coming up w/r/t FSD and Robotaxi, including an expansion of their AV service into several new U.S. markets (San Francisco, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, etc.). The company plans to unlock hands-free/eyes-off autonomy for FSD owners in select U.S. locations by YE25. Supervised FSD in China and Europe is expected to launch over the next ~12 months. And, Optimus is expected to enter scale production in 2026.”

Tesla is currently trading around $310 at around 3:20 p.m. on the East Coast.

Tesla has tipped off where it wants to expand its Robotaxi ride-hailing platform next, as it has launched rides in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday.

Austin, Texas, and the Bay Area of California are the two areas where Tesla is currently operating its ride-hailing service. In Austin, there is nobody in the driver’s seat, whereas in California, the rides will operate with someone in the driver’s seat.

This is a regulatory difference, but it is not all bad. California’s geofence for the ride-hailing service is nearly 70 miles long and spans from above San Francisco to the south, all the way down to San Jose.

However, this is not where Tesla is stopping. Expansion is going to occur when Tesla is ready to do so, but it is not being conservative with its expectations.

During last week’s Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he expects half of the U.S. population to have access to Robotaxi by the end of the year:

“As we get the approvals and prove out safety, we will be launching the autonomous ride-hailing across most of the country. I think we will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the US by the end of the year. That’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals. I think we will technically be able to do it. Assuming we have regulatory approvals, it’s probably addressing half the population of the US by the end of the year. We are being very cautious. We do not want to take any chances, so we are going to go cautiously. But the service areas and the number of vehicles in operation will increase at a hyper-exponential rate.”

In order to do this, Tesla will need to expand to additional cities. A recent list of job postings captured by Tesla Yoda on X showed that the automaker is hiring in major metropolitan areas of the U.S. to reach more people.

🚨 Tesla appears to be looking to expand Robotaxi to the following areas, based on job postings:

– Palo Alto, California
– Brooklyn, New York
– Houston, Texas
– Farmer’s Branch, Texas
– Tempe, Arizona
– Henderson, Nevada
– Tampa, Florida
– Clermont, Florida
– Miami, Florida https://t.co/zhf37sNKIu pic.twitter.com/h2bDpbiSMg

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 31, 2025

The cities listed in the job postings are:

• Palo Alto, California
• Brooklyn, New York
• Houston, Texas
• Dallas, Texas
• Tempe, Arizona
• Las Vegas, Nevada
• Tampa, Florida
• Orlando, Florida
• Miami, Florida

Accessing markets like New York City, Dallas, Las Vegas, Miami, Tampa, and Orlando will enable Tesla to gain access to more customers. These are also major hotspots for tourism in the United States, where people might be able to get Tesla Robotaxi rides during trips or vacations.

These cities are unconfirmed to be in Tesla’s sites as it has not made any official statements about where it will expand in the future. However, these job postings are a good indication of where it could be looking in order to expand.