1:33US safety regulator probes how Tesla certified the Cybercab, one day after launch
NHTSA has opened an audit into Tesla's claim that the steering-wheel-free Cybercab meets every federal safety standard. Here is what the agency wants to know and why it matters.
Barely a day after the Cybercab started carrying passengers in Austin, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an inquiry into how Tesla certified the vehicle. The audit query, numbered AQ26002, was opened on September 3.
What the issue is
In the United States, carmakers certify their own vehicles as compliant with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Tesla told NHTSA that it self-certified the Cybercab as meeting all of them. The catch: several of those standards assume a human driver, with things like a foot-operated brake pedal and mirrors.
The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals and no traditional side mirrors. NHTSA wants to examine the process and the technical data Tesla relied on, and how much of its certification rests on Tesla's view that certain standards simply do not apply to a driverless car.
A familiar playbook
NHTSA is following the same route it took with Amazon's Zoox, which also self-certified a vehicle without manual controls. In that case the agency issued a special order for information and an audit query in 2023. Zoox later received a temporary exemption, finalized in July 2026, that allows it to add up to 2,500 vehicles a year to its commercial fleet for two years.
Tesla, by contrast, did not apply for an exemption. That choice is now part of what regulators are asking about.
The rules are changing, slowly
The Department of Transportation has proposed dropping the requirement for manual controls on vehicles designed to drive themselves, and NHTSA says it expects to finish revising those rules in the coming months. Until then, the agency stresses, existing standards remain in force. NHTSA's administrator also said the agency supports the safe development of automated vehicles.
What to watch
The audit does not automatically stop the Cybercab from operating. But it puts a regulatory question mark over Tesla's plan to scale the vehicle quickly to more cities. The key milestones are Tesla's formal answers to NHTSA and the final shape of the new rules for cars without steering wheels.
