NHTSA's Cybercab audit query: sworn answers are due 30 October

NHTSA has opened an audit query into Tesla's certification that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards. Sworn written answers are due by 30 October. This deserves its own thread because it is the point where the Cybercab's design meets rules that were written assuming a driver. A Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals and no mirrors. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards have historically been built around a human who can take over. How a vehicle like this gets certified, and whether that certification holds, is the substance of the query. Three things people routinely conflate. Worth keeping them apart here: - An audit query is a request for information. It is not a defect finding, and it is not a recall. - A defect investigation is a formal escalation, with its own process and timelines. - A recall is a remedy order. There is also a separate and much larger NHTSA investigation into roughly 3.2 million Tesla vehicles over Full Self-Driving behaviour. That is a different matter and should not be folded into this one. What to watch: - Whether Tesla's answers become public, and in what form. - Whether NHTSA escalates to a formal investigation. - Whether anything changes about service in Austin in the meantime. - Whether the exemption question is addressed at all. This is where I am least sure of the ground, and I would welcome someone who follows the regulatory side properly to weigh in. If you have the docket number, the filing, or any primary source, post it. Secondary reporting on this has been thin, and this thread would be better leaning on documents than on summaries.