The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched an investigation into Tesla’s certification of its autonomous Cybercab, a robotaxi. This comes after Tesla’s stock experienced a drop of over 6% on the same day.
The agency is looking into the methods and technical information that Tesla used to show that its Cybercabs comply with federal vehicle safety standards. This pertains to about 1,000 vehicles.
Tesla recently started a limited rollout of the Cybercabs, which seat two, in Austin, Texas, and has plans to expand this service to more vehicles and locations as time goes on.
NHTSA pointed out that the Cybercab is missing conventional manual controls, such as a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator pedal, and mirrors.
Automakers are required to certify that their vehicles meet federal safety standards. If there is a concern that a certified vehicle isn’t meeting these standards, NHTSA conducts an investigation.
Earlier in June, the NHTSA proposed eliminating the requirement for manual brake pedals in self-driving cars, which could simplify the deployment of such vehicles across the U.S. There are also other proposed changes aimed at loosening federal safety standards, reducing the need for traditional driver controls in autonomous vehicles.
For now, existing regulations remain in place, as noted by NHTSA.
The NHTSA Administrator, Jonathan Morrison, mentioned that, while they support the safe advancement of automated vehicles, they need to ensure compliance with laws.
The agency’s investigation will assess Tesla’s certification process and examine whether the company had justified not adhering to certain safety standards for the Cybercab.
At this time, Tesla has not provided a public response to the investigation.
As of Friday morning, state records indicated that Tesla had 420 registered autonomous vehicles in Texas, among them 45 Cybercabs.
According to current regulations, fully self-driving vehicles do not require NHTSA approval if they are equipped with necessary human controls like steering wheels or brake pedals.
NHTSA can grant up to 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer each year the privilege to operate without these required human controls. In July, they approved an exemption for Amazon’s Zoox, allowing limited deployment of their robotaxis without steering wheels, which was a notable first for the autonomy sector.
As of now, Tesla has not filed for a similar exemption.
