Tesla Needs NHTSA Approval Before Cybercab Can Drive on U.S. Roads
The Tesla Cybercab faces some serious roadblocks that its self-driving technology may not be able to navigate.
The robotaxi cannot legally operate on U.S. roads under current regulations, according to Bloomberg. And even if the battery-powered car were to be granted approval, the amount of units the company would be allowed to build per year would be severely limited.
At last week’s Cybercab unveiling, CEO Elon Musk, as is his wont, painted a very rosy picture of his company’s first self-driving vehicle. He described a car without a steering wheel or pedals that could drive two passengers to their desired destination without either having to do a thing. Just as astonishing was his claim of how close the vehicle was to becoming a reality. The world’s richest person said he believed production would begin before the end of 2026, though he admitted he is sometimes “a little optimistic with timeframes.”
Something missing from Musk’s presentation was any real reference to what needs to happen for the Cybercab to go into production and hit U.S. roads. First, the company will have to train its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software to actually drive itself, something it still cannot do despite its name. Currently, the technology only offers Level 2 autonomy, which means it can operate on its own but a human driver must still be paying attention and ready to take over the vehicle at any time. What Musk described was a vehicle operating at Level 5 autonomy, so there’s still a ways to go.
He also didn’t address the regulatory hurdles the vehicle faces. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) does not allow vehicles lacking a steering wheel and other driver controls on U.S. roads. There is a possibility that Tesla could be granted an exemption, but even if it were, it would not be allowed to build more than 2,500 Cybercabs per year. If the EV is to become as widespread as Musk envisions, the company would have to build significantly more units annually.
“Unless Congress increases this limit, as several failed bills would have done, exemptions aren’t a viable route for a mass manufacturer,” Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, told the news wire.
These large hurdles may help illustrate why the response to a vehicle that can drive itself has been so tepid. Investors seem aware that a lot has to happen before the Cybercab is production viable, which could explain why Tesla’s stock price dropped more than 9 percent in the immediate wake of the unveiling. (It has yet to fully recover in the week since. )News that the NHTSA has launched another investigation in FSD after several accidents involving the technology, including one of which was fatal, won’t help either.
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