Tesla Cybercab is barely real and it’s already under investigation
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The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has confirmed further details of its new investigation into Tesla's Cybercab robotaxi, with agency head Jonathan Morrison stating that regulators must ensure federal safety laws are followed even as they support autonomous vehicle innovation. The audit query examines whether Tesla properly certified the Cybercab despite it lacking sideview mirrors, pedals and a steering wheel, features normally required under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, without Tesla appearing to have sought a formal exemption. The probe casts doubt over the vehicle's near-term prospects, coming just days after its public debut in Austin, Texas, and adds to scrutiny of Musk's approach of launching products before securing full regulatory clearance.
NHTSA's inquiry covers an estimated 1,000 Cybercabs, though only 45 are currently registered with Texas authorities, and a similar case involving Amazon's Zoox shuttle saw the company barred from charging passenger fares for two years while under investigation. Tesla plans to expand its robotaxi service to more cities and eventually sell the two-seat Cybercab to consumers for around $30,000. The case is separate from another ongoing NHTSA probe into 3.2 million Tesla vehicles fitted with Full Self-Driving software, which could result in a recall.
- NHTSA confirms probe into Tesla Cybercab's lack of legally required safety features
- Agency chief says safety oversight will be balanced with backing for AV innovation
- Similar Zoox investigation delayed passenger fares for two years
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Tesla unveiled the Cybercab, a driverless two-seat robotaxi with no steering wheel, pedals or side mirrors, at a public debut in Austin, Texas. It is central to Elon Musk's plans to expand Tesla's robotaxi service and eventually sell the vehicle to consumers for around $30,000, but American road vehicles are normally required to have those standard controls and mirrors unless a manufacturer secures a specific exemption.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal body that sets and enforces vehicle safety rules, has opened an inquiry into whether Tesla properly certified the Cybercab given it lacks these features. NHTSA's head, Jonathan Morrison, has said the agency's job is to back innovation while still enforcing existing safety law. A comparable inquiry into Amazon's Zoox shuttle previously led to that company being barred from charging passengers for two years while under review.
The outcome matters because it could delay or restrict how many Cybercabs can be deployed or sold, at a time when roughly 1,000 are said to exist but only a small number are currently registered. It also comes alongside a separate, larger NHTSA investigation into millions of Tesla vehicles using Full Self-Driving software, adding to broader questions about how Tesla brings new automated technology to market.
Full account
Tesla's driverless Cybercab had barely begun carrying passengers on the streets of Austin, Texas, before it became the subject of a federal safety investigation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an audit query into the two-seat robotaxi, focusing on how Tesla certified the vehicle as roadworthy despite it lacking several features long considered standard, and legally required, on American cars: a steering wheel, foot pedals and side mirrors.
Under US rules, carmakers are permitted to self-certify that new vehicles meet the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) rather than seeking upfront government approval, with NHTSA able to step in afterwards if something looks amiss. The regulator said it wants to establish how Tesla concluded that a car without manual controls could still comply with standards seemingly written with those controls in mind, and specifically how far Tesla's certification relied on the argument that such requirements simply do not apply to a vehicle of this kind. Notably, Tesla does not appear to have filed for a formal exemption from these rules before putting the Cybercab into service, which is understood to be what triggered the inquiry. NHTSA framed the review as an attempt to balance encouragement of autonomous-vehicle development with its duty to enforce existing law, with administrator Jonathan Morrison stressing that innovation would not come at the expense of oversight.
The scale of what is actually under scrutiny remains somewhat hazy. NHTSA's query nominally covers as many as 1,000 Cybercabs, yet Tesla's real-world fleet appears far smaller: state records show only 45 Cybercabs registered with Texas authorities, part of a broader tally of a few hundred autonomous vehicles the company operates in the state, and it is not clear how many of those are actually ferrying fare-paying riders as opposed to being used for testing. The vehicles entered service after a low-key launch event in Austin, with Tesla saying it intends to broaden the Cybercab's rollout to further cities as an extension of its existing Robotaxi operation, which currently uses modified Model Y SUVs to offer rides in several other US markets, and eventually to sell the purpose-built two-seater to private buyers at a price expected to be around $30,000.
An investigation of this sort does not force Tesla to halt production or pull the Cybercab from the road, but it does cast doubt over the vehicle's near-term future and echoes a dispute NHTSA had with Amazon's self-driving unit Zoox in 2024, when a similarly steering-wheel-free shuttle was likewise put into service after self-certification and then became subject to a federal review; Zoox was allowed to keep running its vehicles while that inquiry proceeded, but strictly for demonstration purposes and without charging passengers. NHTSA's move also lands as the agency is separately weighing changes to its own rules that would make it easier for manufacturers to bring driverless vehicles without conventional controls to market, even as it works to keep tabs on the fast-growing robotaxi sector more broadly, having recently written to operators warning them about vehicles obstructing emergency responders.
Where outlets differ
Source 1 gives more institutional detail: it quotes NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison's rationale for the probe, describes the agency's parallel work on rule changes for controls-free vehicles and its recent warning to robotaxi operators about blocking emergency responders, and draws out the Zoox 2024 precedent (including that Zoox could operate for demonstrations only, without charging riders) at greater length.
Source 2 leans on Reuters-sourced registration figures, reporting that Tesla has 420 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas in total, of which 45 are Cybercabs, and notes that Tesla already runs robotaxi services using Model Y vehicles in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa — detail largely absent from Source 1, which focuses more narrowly on the Austin launch and the certification dispute itself.
Source 1 mentions the Cybercab's eventual consumer price (roughly $30,000) and the private Austin launch event, details not covered in Source 2.
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