NHTSA

NHTSA granted Tesla a 30-day extension for its response to the Cybercab certification Special Order, setting an October 30 deadline. The September 10 Special Order had required a response by September 30, 2026.

NHTSA issued a Special Order requiring Tesla to show, under oath, how a vehicle with no steering wheel, pedals or mirrors complies with federal safety standards written for human drivers. Tesla has until September 30 to respond, and failing to answer fully and truthfully carries penalties of up to $139 million.

NHTSA opened an Audit Query into Tesla's certification that the Cybercab meets applicable federal vehicle safety standards. The agency said it would investigate Tesla's certification process and technical data.

On the day of its invitation-only launch event Tesla updated its robotaxi site to say Cybercab rides were available in limited areas of Austin, released a video in which Musk called it the first car built specifically for unsupervised full self-driving, and let attendees ride in the gold two-seaters. NHTSA said it was in contact with Tesla and evaluating the situation, since federal rules cap sales of vehicles without steering wheels and pedals. Texas records showed 45 Cybercabs among 420 Tesla vehicles registered for driverless operation.

NHTSA published a notice of proposed rulemaking to amend FMVSS No. 135. The proposal addressed application of the brake standard to vehicles with and without manually operated driving controls, while retaining stopping-distance requirements.

Newly unredacted crash reports released by NHTSA gave narrative descriptions for all 17 crashes Tesla had logged on the Robotaxi network since launch; Tesla had previously blacked out every description as confidential. Two of the crashes, in July 2025 and January 2026 in Austin, happened while a remote operator was driving the car at under 10 mph after the safety monitor asked for help: one mounted a curb into a metal fence, the other scraped a construction barricade. Other cases included an unprotected left turn into a parking-lot chain and a dog that ran into the road. Most of the rest were other vehicles hitting the Teslas. Musk had said the month before that making sure things are completely safe was the biggest limit on expansion.

A letter dated May 8 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation, published on May 12, asked Tesla how it would evaluate its robotaxi vehicles for public roads: fleet size and models, how the system relates to FSD Supervised, how safety would be judged, whether future vehicles would meet federal safety standards or need exemptions, and how the cars would handle sun glare, fog, dust, rain or snow. The letter cited Tesla's April 23 post about its employee ride-hailing pilot and set a June 19 deadline.