Tesla Cybercab. Credit: Tesla
Federal regulators just raised the stakes on Tesla’s driverless Cybercab paperwork, moving from an open audit into a formal Special Order that demands sworn answers by September 30, 2026.
According to a Reuters summary circulating September 16, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Tesla it must explain whether it properly self-certified Cybercab under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The Special Order, dated September 10 and tied to Audit Query AQ26002, requires a response signed under oath by a responsible Tesla officer and delivered to NHTSA’s Office of the Chief Counsel.
That is distinct from the probe already on record. NHTSA opened AQ26002 on September 3, the same day Tesla began commercial Cybercab rides in Austin, to examine the process and technical data behind Tesla’s compliance claim for a vehicle without permanently attached steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors. The Special Order escalates that audit into a legally enforceable information demand, not a new finding that Cybercab is unsafe or illegally sold.
Among the requests, NHTSA asks whether Cybercabs can be driven with temporarily attached human controls, and whether those controls were part of Tesla’s basis for certifying any FMVSS. The order also seeks which standards Tesla treated as applicable, which it deemed inapplicable, and how the vehicles comply without a Part 555 exemption. Reuters noted that in July NHTSA approved a limited Zoox petition for steering-wheel-free robotaxis under that exemption pathway.
Tesla has not publicly detailed its planned reply. The September 30 deadline is now the next hard date for how the company will defend certification of a production robotaxi that never had a conventional driver cockpit, even as Austin riders can already hail Cybercab through the Robotaxi app.
