NHTSA opened an audit query into Tesla's own certification of the Cybercab

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on September 4 that it had opened an Audit Query into Tesla’s certification that its Cybercab meets all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The agency said the action followed Tesla’s commercial deployment of the driverless vehicles in Austin, Texas. The agency’s own investigation record lists the action as AQ26002 and dates its opening to September 3.

An Audit Query is not a defect investigation. NHTSA said the inquiry “will evaluate the technical data and processes Tesla relied upon to self-certify compliance for a vehicle lacking traditional human controls,” and that it will examine “whether Tesla’s compliance framework relied on determinations that certain standard FMVSS requirements are inapplicable to its automated vehicles.”

That distinction is the substance of the case. The United States does not operate type approval; manufacturers certify their own vehicles against the standards and the agency audits afterwards. A vehicle designed without the controls that several standards were written around therefore raises a question the manufacturer answers first, in its own compliance reasoning, and the regulator reviews second.

NHTSA said it has begun work on eight rulemakings, including standards relating to brake pedals, windshield wipers, lighting and rearview mirrors, and that it looks forward to finishing them. Until that work is completed, the agency said, existing standards remain in force.

“NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed,” Administrator Jonathan Morrison said in the release.

The agency did not give a date for the Austin deployment, name a vehicle count, or say what Tesla had told it. Tesla has published nothing on the matter through its own investor newsroom.