U.S. safety regulators are auditing Tesla's Cybercab over federal safety compliance

Listen, I don't care what their safety record is compared to a human driver...I'm not comfortable being flattened by a computer. If an inanimate object is going to turn me into Swiss cheese, I'd at least like a a judgement impaired human behind the wheel. Is that too much to ask?

U.S. safety regulators are auditing Tesla's Cybercab over federal safety compliance

NHTSA says it will examine the data Tesla used to self-certify the Cybercab as compliant with federal vehicle safety standards

By Cris Tolomia, Quartz Media

Updated September 4, 2026

U.S. safety regulators are auditing Tesla's Cybercab over federal safety compliance

Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit covering approximately 1,000 Tesla $TSLA -5.92% Cybercab vehicles on Friday, scrutinizing how the company justified its conclusion that the robotaxis meet federal vehicle safety requirements, according to Reuters.

NHTSA said it would review the grounds for Tesla's certification, including whether the company concluded that certain Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards were simply not applicable to the Cybercab in the first place. NHTSA pointed out that the Cybercab is missing standard driver-operated hardware such as a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator pedal, and mirrors.

The probe came hours after Tesla began commercial deployment of a small number of Cybercabs in Austin, Texas, on Thursday. State records showed that as of Friday morning, Tesla had registered 420 autonomous vehicles in Texas, 45 of which were Cybercabs. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Automakers traditionally self-certify whether their vehicles comply with federal motor vehicle safety standards. Tesla VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy had said the Cybercab was designed to meet all federal safety standards from the start, allowing the company to self-certify without seeking a special exemption, according to TechCrunch. The Department of Transportation has proposed removing manual control requirements for vehicles designed to operate autonomously, though those rules remain in effect.

The inquiry echoes a situation NHTSA encountered in 2022, when Amazon $AMZN -0.15%-owned Zoox self-certified a cube-shaped robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals, prompting the agency to open a similar audit process. That investigation slowed Zoox's path to commercialization, according to TechCrunch. Zoox spent years navigating the exemption process before receiving federal approval in July 2026 and opening a commercial ride service in Las Vegas. Whether Tesla faces a comparable timeline is unclear.

Tesla put driverless Cybercabs on public streets in Austin ahead of a planned event Thursday where the company shared more details about its rollout. The two-seat vehicle was built without a steering wheel or pedals and manufactured at Tesla's Giga Texas facility. CEO Elon Musk had said material revenue from the Cybercab was unlikely before at least 2027.

NHTSA has at least two other active probes examining whether Tesla's driver-assistance systems contain safety defects. The agency also recently opened an investigation into Avride, a self-driving startup operating on Uber $UBER -0.26%'s platform, after 16 crashes involving its autonomous vehicles in Texas.