NHTSA Orders Tesla to Justify Cybercab's Safety Certification Under Oath

Federal auto-safety regulators have ordered Tesla to explain, under oath, how it determined that its Cybercab robotaxi — a vehicle built without a steering wheel, foot pedals or mirrors — complies with federal safety standards written on the assumption that a human is driving. The special order, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on September 10, gives Tesla until September 30 to provide sworn, detailed answers or face civil and potentially criminal penalties.

The order escalates an audit query NHTSA announced on September 3, the same day Tesla began commercial Cybercab rides in Austin, Texas, into a formal legal demand backed by the threat of fines. It is the most direct federal challenge yet to Tesla's decision to certify a driverless production vehicle on its own authority rather than seek advance approval from Washington.

A demand for sworn answers

The special order, signed by NHTSA chief counsel Peter Simshauser, poses 21 specific requests covering how many Cybercabs are on the road, where they operate, and — at the center of the inquiry — the technical basis Tesla used to certify the vehicle under the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS. Investigators want to know whether Tesla used temporary steering wheels, pedals or mirrors during compliance testing and then removed them before deployment, and they are asking the company to identify every standard it considers inapplicable to a vehicle with no human controls.

One standard singled out in the order, FMVSS No. 135, states that "the service brakes shall be activated by means of a foot control." Tesla's Cybercab has none. The order also cites the federal statute underlying the entire self-certification system, noting that a manufacturer "may not issue" a compliance certificate "if, in exercising reasonable care, the person has reason to know the certificate is false or misleading in a material respect."

"A person may not issue" a safety certification "if, in exercising reasonable care, the person has reason to know the certificate is false or misleading in a material respect."

• 21 detailed requests Tesla must answer under oath by September 30
• Up to $139 million in potential civil penalties for an inadequate or false response
• Up to 15 years in prison as a possible criminal penalty for falsifying or withholding information
• The audit query covers an estimated 1,000 Cybercab vehicles nationally
• Tesla began paid Cybercab service on September 3 in Austin, adding to a Texas robotaxi fleet that had already grown to roughly 420 vehicles, most of them Model Ys, with about 45 Cybercabs registered by mid-September

How Tesla arrived here

Unlike much of the developed world, the United States does not require automakers to obtain pre-market government approval before selling a new vehicle. Manufacturers instead self-certify that a model meets applicable FMVSS rules and face enforcement after the fact if NHTSA disagrees. That system was built for conventional cars; it has never been tested against a production vehicle with no provision for a human driver.

Cybercab, first shown as a concept in 2024, entered commercial service on September 3 as an extension of the driverless Model Y robotaxi service Tesla already runs in limited areas of Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Rather than apply for a federal exemption before deployment, Tesla certified the two-seater's compliance itself, and NHTSA opened its audit query within hours of the launch.

That approach contrasts with the path taken by Amazon's autonomous-vehicle unit, Zoox, which spent more than a year pursuing a formal exemption before putting its own steering-wheel-free robotaxi into paid service. In July, NHTSA granted Zoox's petition for a temporary Part 555 exemption covering specific FMVSS requirements — including manual brake controls, mirrors and windshield wipers — for up to 2,500 vehicles a year through mid-2028. Tesla sought no comparable exemption for Cybercab, and the special order's final request asks the company directly to explain how it can operate without human controls without one.

Who is affected, and how Tesla has responded

The immediate parties are riders already using Cybercab in Austin, who continue to be carried through Tesla's Robotaxi app while the review proceeds, and Tesla itself, for which the robotaxi business has become a central pillar of the company's valuation story. A prolonged dispute, a forced pause in Cybercab operations or a finding that the certification was deficient would strike directly at that narrative.

The case also carries weight for the wider autonomous-vehicle industry. A NHTSA finding against Tesla's approach would harden the expectation that any manufacturer wanting to sell a vehicle without human controls must first obtain a Part 555 exemption, the route Zoox and, separately, Waymo have already been navigating. Conversely, if Tesla's self-certification survives scrutiny, it could open a faster, exemption-free path for other companies designing driverless vehicles from scratch.

Tesla has not issued a public statement addressing the special order since it was issued, and the company has continued operating and expanding Cybercab service in Austin through the period covered by the deadline. NHTSA, for its part, has been explicit that its inquiry is not a judgment that Cybercab is unsafe but a demand to understand the legal and technical reasoning behind Tesla's certification, according to coverage of the order by Electrek and other outlets that have reviewed the filing. The agency has separately signaled it expects to update its rules for fully autonomous vehicles over time, while maintaining that existing standards remain in force until it does.

What happens next

Tesla's response is due September 30 and must include underlying engineering analysis, testing records and simulation data, signed under oath by a company officer with direct knowledge of the certification process. NHTSA can extend, narrow or expand the inquiry once it reviews that material, and it retains the option to pursue further investigation, a recall demand or civil penalties if it concludes the certification was inadequate. The dispute was first reported in detail by TechCrunch when the audit query opened and has since been tracked closely by outlets including Drive Tesla Canada, which has published a detailed breakdown of all 21 questions. Whatever Tesla submits by the deadline is likely to shape how regulators treat the next generation of vehicles designed without any human driving position at all.