Tesla’s smallest robotaxi rollout has already become a much larger federal compliance test. Reuters reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday opened an audit covering about 1,000 Tesla Cybercabs, less than a day after the automaker began deploying the purpose-built robotaxi in limited areas of Austin.
The review focuses on the technical basis Tesla used to certify the vehicle under federal safety standards.
Cybercab essentially removes equipment that federal vehicle rules have traditionally assumed would be present, including a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, brake pedal, and mirrors. NHTSA said it will examine how Tesla decided which Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards applied to the vehicle and which did not.
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Tesla told NHTSA it had self-certified the Cybercab as compliant with applicable standards, a process automakers generally use rather than seeking government pre-approval. Tesla has not filed for a Cybercab exemption, according to NHTSA statements reported by TechCrunch.
The scale of the audit is much larger than the initial public rollout. Texas records showed only 45 Cybercabs registered as of Friday morning, within Tesla’s 420 registered autonomous vehicles in the state. Tesla’s own website says Cybercab rides are currently limited to parts of Austin.
Tesla began Cybercab production in April and has positioned the two-seat vehicle as the eventual backbone of its robotaxi network. The company says the vehicle is designed for full autonomy and has no steering wheel or pedals.
The automaker has also started soliciting interest from buyers who may want Cybercabs for commercial fleets, although the vehicle is not yet broadly available for consumer purchase.
The timing puts Tesla’s expansion strategy under scrutiny before the fleet has reached meaningful scale. NHTSA’s audit could determine whether Tesla’s interpretation of existing safety rules can support a much larger rollout without the exemption process used by some rival autonomous-vehicle developers.
Shares fell about 4.5% in Friday trading after gaining 5.4% on Thursday ahead of the Cybercab launch.
