Behind the Wheel from Afar: New Filings Pull Back Curtain on Robotaxi 'Remote Assistants'

For years, a persistent rumor has shadowed the self-driving car industry: are these vehicles just sophisticated remote-controlled toys, guided by unseen hands in distant call centers? Newly submitted government documents from Waymo and Tesla offer the most detailed look yet at the human teams that back up their autonomous systems, confirming their central—and controversial—role.

When a robotaxi encounters something baffling, like last December's traffic light failure in San Francisco that stranded Waymo vehicles, it calls for help. Remote assistants, viewing data streams, provide guidance to get the car moving again. They don't drive it directly, but their advice can be critical. "For the foreseeable future, people will play a role in the vehicles’ behavior, and therefore have a safety role," says Philip Koopman, an autonomous vehicle safety researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

Waymo's filing reveals a global operation. At any time, about 70 assistants monitor roughly 3,000 vehicles. Half are contractors based in the Philippines, trained on U.S. road rules. A separate, U.S.-based team handles complex incidents like collisions. The company stresses these workers "provide advice" but do not directly steer.

Tesla, in its own filing, took a pointedly domestic approach. It told California regulators its remote operators work from offices in Austin and the Bay Area, hold valid U.S. driver's licenses, and undergo extensive screening. The company recently began removing human safety monitors from the front seats of its Austin robotaxis.

Neither company disclosed how often these remote interventions occur. But as robotaxis expand, the effectiveness and oversight of these hidden human teams become a pressing safety question, moving from online speculation to regulatory scrutiny.