The safety of self-driving Tesla Cybercabs has raised questions in the United States

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has expressed concern about the design and certification procedure of the Tesla Cybercab self-driving car, which was put into commercial operation in a limited mode in Austin. The agency began checking about 1,000 of these machines in order to study the technical data and the grounds on which the company declared Cybercab's compliance with the requirements of federal security standards. This was reported by Reuters on September 4.

The regulator's special attention was caused by the fact that the Tesla Cybercab is not equipped with traditional controls — steering wheel, brake and accelerator pedals, as well as rear-view mirrors. The NHTSA intends to assess on what basis Tesla considered certain federal standards inapplicable to the design of an unmanned electric car.

The check was initiated against the background of the launch of commercial trips on Cybercab, which Tesla announced on September 3 in selected areas of Austin (Texas). The company announced plans to gradually expand the geography of the service and increase the number of available cars. By Friday, about 420 autonomous Tesla vehicles had been registered in Texas, including 45 Cybercabs. The company is simultaneously developing a robotaxi service based on modified Model Y.

According to analysts, the company's current fleet in Texas is still inferior in scale to competitors, in particular Waymo. The head of Tesla, Elon Musk, previously called Cybercab a key element of the strategy to create a global network of unmanned vehicles and turn the company into a dominant player in the autonomous transport market. The model was introduced at the end of 2024.

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