Tesla's Cybercab Debut Falls Flat As NHTSA Opens Probe

Tesla’s long awaited Cybercab finally hit the streets of Austin yesterday, and the debut was something of a dud.

For a product Elon Musk has positioned as central to Tesla’s future, the rollout was remarkably subdued. There was no major public livestream with appearance by Musk or traditional press presence, relatively little new information and just 45 Cybercabs registered in Texas as of Thursday. After years of hype surrounding Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions, the event still felt more like a limited demonstration than the beginning of a transportation revolution.

Now federal regulators have thrown a wet blanket over even that modest celebration.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a review of the Cybercab to determine whether its unusual design complies with federal safety rules, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The two seat vehicle has no steering wheel, pedals or conventional mirrors, putting it outside many of the assumptions baked into decades old automotive regulations.

Tesla says the Cybercab meets all applicable federal standards. NHTSA now wants to inspect the technical data and certification process behind that claim, including Tesla’s determination that certain requirements may not apply to a purpose built autonomous vehicle.

The U.S. generally allows automakers to certify their own vehicles rather than obtaining federal approval before production. NHTSA can then challenge those certifications after vehicles reach public roads, which is essentially what is happening here.

There is also precedent. Regulators previously challenged Amazon owned Zoox after it certified a robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals. Zoox eventually received an exemption allowing commercial operation under certain restrictions. Tesla has not applied for a similar exemption.

Tesla has installed capacity to produce more than 125,000 Cybercabs annually and eventually hopes to sell them for less than $30,000. Musk has increasingly tied Tesla’s valuation and future to autonomous transportation rather than simply selling electric cars.

NHTSA could ultimately conclude Tesla has done everything correctly. But if regulators disagree, the Cybercab could face required modifications, recalls or additional regulatory hurdles.

Either way, the probe makes an already underwhelming debut even more awkward. Tesla finally got the Cybercab onto public roads after years of promises, only for Washington to immediately start asking whether it should be there in its current form.

Tesla shares are down over 6% this morning (having rolled over at the July highs)...

Analyst Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research put out a note to clients Friday morning that said: "Morgan Stanley set the bar at 25 to 50 Cybercabs on the road, and visibility around pricing, the ability to purchase, and federal exemptions… for the Cybercab event to be a “success”."

He continued: "Tesla delivered 45 registrations, would not say how many were in service, skipped the livestream, kept Musk off the stage, and left the event with no price, no per-mile economics, no purchase button, and no federal exemption on file for a vehicle that legally needs one. When a company stages a launch and then declines to answer the only questions the bulls said mattered, the honest read is not that the story is early — it's that there wasn't one to tell."