New Lawsuit From Tesla Manager Calls Self-Driving EVs 'Rolling Hazards'

Just months after a Tesla was accused of dumping wastewater into a ditch near a Texas lithium refinery, the company is now being sued by a former employee who claims he was fired for whistleblowing in regard to safety concerns. As reported by The Independent, Javier Medrano, a former Tesla manager, alleges that he personally witnessed "severe, systemic safety oversight defects" while he was overseeing self-driving tests for a fleet of Teslas. In the federal lawsuit, Medrano claims these problems make Tesla's self-driving EVs both "highly dangerous" and "rolling hazards."

The suit alleges that Medrano was forced to compromise safety due to a lack of labor in Tesla's test-vehicle and operator fleet. During autonomous testing, remote fleet operators act as a safety backstop to manage the various processes necessary to keep the self-driving vehicles operational, and managers like Medrano oversee it all. But when Tesla "aggressively" increased its team, from 15 operators to 38, while also increasing active shifts to three shifts that ran 24 hours per day, Medrano became responsible for more than he bargained for. Medrano alleges that the Houston fleet grew to a "dangerous" 38-to-1 ratio of operators to managers, exceeding Tesla's own policies that mandate a lower 15-to-1 ratio baseline. 

Despite asking for support from higher-ups, eventually, it led to a collision, Medrano was the sole manager for an oversized, around-the-clock team of drivers. As such, he was the emergency response operator following one of the test vehicles being sideswiped by another vehicle at 2:05 a.m. on Sunday, March 30, 2025. Exhausted and burnt out he doesn't remember the call or the discussions that occurred, and due to the ensuing circumstances, he was later terminated on May 1, 2025.

Claiming "unlawful retaliation," Medrano is suing for reinstatement, as well as lost pay, lost benefits, emotional and financial distress, and costs of litigation. The pretrial conference is scheduled for November 19, 2026. At that time the judge and involved attorneys will discuss the next steps in the case and whether or not it will move forward.

It's worth noting that between 2016 and 2021, Consumer Reports ranked Tesla as the least reliable used car brand long term, but that has steadily improved over time. Both in regard to reliability and the features offered. Tesla maintains a tracker that shares how many full self-driving miles its vehicles have traveled — under supervision — which is currently over 12 billion and counting. Moreover, Tesla's new electric semi-truck tech is set to help improve driver safety on icy roads.