Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk outlined a beautiful vision at the first Robotaxi business conference, announcing plans to produce a Cybercab prototype without a steering wheel and pedals starting in 2026, and expecting to reach considerable production by 2027.
However, beautiful dreams sometimes have to face harsh realities. Tesla must overcome significant obstacles posed by US government regulations in order to mass produce the autonomous taxi Cybercab.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Tuesday (October 15th) that Tesla has not yet applied for a road exemption for the Cybercab without a steering wheel.
Obstacles abound
Usually, car manufacturers must obtain permission from NHTSA to put cars on the road without steering wheels or other control devices required by US automotive safety regulations.
Even if Tesla successfully overcomes this obstacle, there will only be a few thousand autonomous taxis on the road each year. According to regulations, NHTSA typically allows the deployment of 2500 vehicles per year for car manufacturers with exemptions, which means that even if Cybercab is on the road, it will ultimately be a niche product.
So far, NHTSA has only approved one similar application in 2020, allowing startup Nuro to deploy low-speed automatic delivery vehicles for freight and passenger transport.
In addition to the strict approval of NHTSA, the regulations of the US states on vehicle road operation have also brought obstacles to Tesla. Whether the states will permit autonomous vehicle on the road is a bigger problem. For example, in California, Tesla may take several years to obtain the necessary permits.
A spokesperson for the California Department of Motor Vehicles stated that Tesla has held a license to test autonomous driving technology in the presence of a human safety driver since 2015, but the company has not reported using the technology since 2019.
Mary Cummings, an engineering professor at George Mason University and former NHTSA consultant, commented that obtaining state permits is a bigger issue for Tesla. Tesla will need several more years to obtain the necessary permits in California before providing test data to the state
Empty promises
When people recovered from the frenzy of Robotaxi Day, they realized that Tesla had only made an empty promise.
There are comments stating that "Musk has provided almost no new details about Tesla's autonomous taxi business model, such as revenue or market size forecasts
Other comments pointed out that Musk avoided the regulatory issue during the meeting. He did not specify how Tesla would solve the regulatory obstacles to the deployment of autonomous vehicle, but said that the company would provide this service if allowed.
According to data, Tesla delivered approximately 1.81 million vehicles worldwide last year, and reportedly delivered around 463000 vehicles in the first month of this quarter. Based on these data, it means that the potential sales after Tesla's Robotaxi business goes live may be negligible.