Tesla’s Cybercab is so safe it’s internal test results are ‘confidential business information’
Tesla has answered NHTSA’s Special Order demanding it prove, under oath, that the Cybercab meets federal safety standards. The response landed on the October 30 deadline, and Tesla asked the agency to keep all of it confidential.
The only part of the filing the public can read is a 30-page guide for firefighters. Everything about how a car with no steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors was certified as compliant is blacked out.
We reported in September that NHTSA had ordered Tesla to show its work on the Cybercab’s certification. The order came one week after the company started charging for Cybercab rides in Austin on September 3 and put 21 questions to the company, with civil penalties of up to $139 million for an incomplete answer and criminal exposure for a false one.
Tesla first tried to buy time. On September 18, it asked for eight more weeks, until November 20, citing “the voluminous nature of the request” and the work of searching its records and writing “thorough narrative formats in response to each question.” NHTSA gave it 30 days instead. The new deadline was October 30, and Tesla met it.
Three Tesla documents now sit in the AQ26002 docket, and two of them are empty.
The first is Tesla’s response letter, dated October 30 and addressed from 1 Tesla Road in Austin. It is one page long. The only text is: “The entirety of this file is confidential business information.” [Continue reading…]