The billionaire CEO claims the new steering wheel-less, pedal-less Cybercab goes into production in April. But Tesla doesn’t have a regulatory exemption needed to sell it — it hasn’t even applied for it.
Minutes after winning Tesla shareholder approval for his unprecedented $1 trillion pay package at its annual meeting, a beaming Elon Musk took to the stage at the Austin plant to cheers from investor fans and board members to lay out his plans for the next couple of years. Chief among them: Cybercab, his vision for a dedicated, fully driverless, electric taxi and Tesla’s play for autonomous global transportation dominance.
Unlike its top-selling Model Y crossover, Model 3 sedan or even the Cybertruck – which has fallen far short of the billionaire CEO’s lofty volume goals – Cybercab is to be sold exclusively as a self-driving vehicle, without standard controls, according to Musk. It’s to be priced below $30,000, making it the company’s most affordable model. And according to Musk, it’s headed to market soon.
“We’ve got the first car that is specifically built for unsupervised full self-driving, to be a robotaxi. It’s called a Cybercab. It doesn’t even have pedals or a steering wheel. There are no side-view mirrors,” he said. “And that production is happening right here in this factory. We’ll be starting production in April next year.”
Whether Tesla is ready to sell a vehicle that’s truly capable of safely driving itself is debatable. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently conducting an extensive probe of Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving system owing to numerous accident reports. But leaving that aside, the company seems to be hurtling toward an unforced error. As of this writing, such a vehicle wouldn’t comply with federal vehicle safety rules that require specific types of equipment on passenger vehicles, including mirrors, pedals, steering wheels, windshields and wipers. And while there’s an effort to update those rules for autonomous vehicles, which don’t use those components, they’re not on track to be enacted prior to Musk’s target date for the new car.
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U.S. rules for the types of required equipment carmakers need to include on their vehicles are specified under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSS, and overseen by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has proposed revising the rules for automated vehicles, but changes won’t be finalized anytime soon. Tesla’s rivals in the robotaxi space have all factored this into their commercialization plans. Zoox, owned by Amazon, requested and received a waiver from NHTSA to test its purpose-built robotaxi, which lacks standard controls, on public roads. It’s also applied for a commercial waiver from FMVSS rules so it can start charging the public for rides next year. That’s why in its just-launched programs in San Francisco and Las Vegas, it’s not charging for rides yet. Waymo doesn’t need such a waiver as it uses modified versions of conventional vehicles in its robotaxi service and has no immediate plan to shift to a purpose-built robotaxi model.
Zoox, owned by Amazon, is letting the public ride in its robotaxis in San Francisco for free for now.
Zoox
Musk does, but his company hasn’t yet sought permission. And that’s a problem.
“Tesla has not applied for any exemptions for the Cybercab, ” NHTSA told Forbes. “Any company seeking to operate a noncompliant vehicle on public roads (other than under a statutory exception, including the FAST Act’s testing and evaluation exception) must apply for and receive an exemption from NHTSA prior to operations.”
Neither Musk nor Tesla responded to a request for comment.
A week before Musk talked up his Cybercab plans, Robyn Denholm, Tesla’s board chair, downplayed concerns about Cybercab’s design and deployment as she campaigned for shareholders to approve Musk’s Brobdingnagian compensation package. Aside from regulatory issues, she seemed to be addressing concerns that Tesla’s self-driving tech isn’t yet safe enough for the kind of vehicle Musk wants to sell.
“If we have to have a steering wheel, it can have a steering wheel and pedals,” she said in a Bloomberg News interview on Oct. 28. But that’s not at all what Musk said in his Nov. 6 remarks. It’s also at odds with his October 2024 claim that Tesla wouldn’t sell the Cybercab as the so-called Model 2, a $25,000 EV.
“We’re not making a non-robotaxi model,” he said. “I think we’ve made it very clear that the future is autonomous.”
“Sean Dummy”
Under U.S. law, automakers self-certify that their vehicles meet FMVSS requirements and don’t need advance approval from NHTSA to put new models into production. But a company that attempts to sell a noncompliant vehicle – ahead of changes in federal guidelines, such as those proposed for autonomous vehicles – is taking a big risk, a former official with the agency told Forbes.
“NHTSA is reactive because of the self-certification. As soon as the vehicle goes on public roads or is sold, NHTSA can do whatever it wants,” said the former official, who asked not to be named. “At that point, absolutely something bad happens.”
A Tesla Cybercab on display at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
VCG via Getty Images
It would likely trigger an investigation, requiring the carmaker to share extensive engineering data with NHTSA, the person said. If it sees potential defects, it can order that fixes be made. It can also stop them from being driven or sold. There could also be fines for the manufacturer.
If Musk is hoping his once-friendly ties with Trump will make things easier, he may be disappointed. Certainly, he has not made a friend of the Transportation Secretary, to whom NHTSA reports. When Duffy, who’s also the acting NASA administrator, suggested a lunar landing contract could go to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin instead of Musk’s SpaceX, the billionaire CEO, famous for his lack of self-control in public comments, took to his social media platform X to call him “Sean Dummy,” later adding he had a “2 digit IQ.”
“How many cars are sold with two doors?”
Tesla’s EV sales peaked at 1.8 million units in 2023, before falling 1.2% last year. They’re on track for a second consecutive annual decline in 2025, likely coming in at about 1.6 million units. BYD, a brand Musk once mocked, has passed Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of battery-powered autos, and though Musk wants his company to pivot to robotaxis and humanoid robots, cars remain its biggest revenue source. And the company desperately needs a hit product after its Cybertruck flop.
While it might be a safer option to forego selling Cybercab in the form Musk prefers, it’s questionable whether that would result in substantial new sales volume because of a key design feature: It’s a two-door car.
“Two-door models are just not popular, and there are so many reasons as to why,” said Ed Kim, president and chief analyst for industry researcher AutoPacific. Generally, it’s because U.S. carbuyers see them as too impractical for hauling multiple passengers and cargo, he said.
While some luxury brands still specialize in two-door sports cars, “even a storied brand like Porsche needs to make four-door vehicles in volume to fund development of the two-door models that are its icons,” Kim said.
As for selling Cybercab without a steering wheel, “I just don’t see it happening,” said a former Tesla executive who asked not to be named. “And with a steering wheel, it looks like a very compromised vehicle. How many cars are sold with two doors? Very, very few. This is the kind of thing that Elon really freaking sucks at. He refuses to accept how people think.”
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2025/11/19/elon-musk-cant-legally-sell-the-tesla-cybercab-hes-promised/
