The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into whether Tesla's new Cybercab complies with federal safety rules, coming just one day after the company began offering rides in the two-seat, steering-wheel-free vehicle.
The agency said it is examining whether Tesla was in full compliance when it deployed the Cybercabs in Austin, Texas. The cars lack steering wheels, mirrors and brake pedals typically required in vehicles. NHTSA said it will audit 'the process and technical data' Tesla used in its self-certification.
Elon Musk launched the Austin service Thursday with a public event for invitees, sending dozens of the vehicles onto city streets as the first step of what he calls a national rollout of a driverless taxi network.
Tesla stock fell nearly 6% to $354.08 on Friday, wiping out the prior day's launch-driven gains.
Automakers routinely self-certify new vehicles before putting them on public roads, and a regulatory audit is not automatic — NHTSA investigates only certifications it believes may violate federal rules. Unlike most new models, the Cybercab does not carry minor tweaks but a fundamental redesign that removes the manual controls a passenger could use in an emergency, which the agency flagged as raising new safety questions.
The precedent is not encouraging for a quick resolution. Rival robotaxi service Zoox faced a similar probe three years ago after self-certifying its own steering-wheel-free cab; regulators eventually approved it, but only after a formal review process.
Tesla is already the subject of several other federal investigations tied to its self-driving software. One examines the software's role in crashes during fog, sun glare and other low-visibility conditions, including one in which a pedestrian was killed. Another is looking into dozens of incidents in which Teslas using partial self-driving software ran red lights or drove on the wrong side of the road, in some cases causing injuries. A third is examining whether Tesla failed to report crashes to regulators promptly, as required.
The Cybercab rollout is meant to be the leading edge of Tesla's existing robotaxi network, which has operated in Austin for more than a year and expanded into five other cities in Texas and Florida using conventional Tesla vehicles with human backup drivers.
The numbers come first: a nearly 6% single-day drop is the market's real-time verdict on regulatory risk, delivered before NHTSA had even finished drafting its filing. Capital rewards clear rules, and self-certification — the standard industry practice that let Detroit and Silicon Valley alike bring new vehicles to market without a permission line at the DMV — is precisely the kind of light-touch framework that made rapid automotive innovation possible in the first place.
None of that erases the substance behind the probe. A pedestrian death, red-light incidents and unreported crashes are matters of record, not political spin, and Tesla will have to answer for them under the same rules that apply to every manufacturer. The test for Washington now is whether this audit stays a genuine safety review or becomes another front in the administrative state's habit of slow-walking American innovation into the ground. The taxpayer and the commuter both have a stake in getting that balance right.
