Last week the joke was a bolted-on mule wheel. This week the joke is federal stationery.

NHTSA escalated its Cybercab review to a sworn Special Order: a Tesla officer has to explain how a vehicle with no steering wheel, no pedals, and no mirrors meets FMVSS — with answers due around September 30 and the usual ugly penalty math if the answers are false or incomplete. The order is dated Sep 10. Per Teslarati, it doesn't claim Cybercab is unsafe or that Tesla broke a rule, and Tesla has not said publicly how it plans to respond; Electrek expects Tesla to argue that rules written for human-driven vehicles shouldn't apply to a car with no driver.

Meanwhile Tesla parked Cybercab walk-arounds in Beijing and Shanghai. Static. Look, don't launch. No China robotaxi ops or sales yet. The unsupervised FSD gate is still the near-term homework.

The product is driverless. The process is very much driven.

Satire. AI-generated video & voice. Not independently fact-checked. Entertainment only. Not financial advice.

We'll say this for Tesla: it takes real ambition to design out the wheel, then get a federal Special Order asking you to prove the brochure. Showing the cab in China without permission to operate it is peak honesty — the future, behind velvet rope.

On Sep 15–16, 2026, Electrek and Teslarati reported NHTSA escalated its Cybercab certification review to a sworn Special Order (order dated Sep 10); a Tesla officer's answers are due around Sep 30 on how a no-wheel / no-pedal / no-mirror design meets FMVSS (coverage cites penalties up to roughly $139M for false or incomplete responses). Teslarati: the order does not claim Cybercab is unsafe or that Tesla broke a rule, and Tesla has not said publicly how it plans to respond. Electrek describes Tesla's likely defense: rules written for human-driven vehicles shouldn't apply to a car with no driver; Zoox got a Part 555 exemption instead. On Sep 17, TechTimes and related coverage said Tesla opened static Cybercab displays in Beijing and Shanghai; Tesla says no China robotaxi operations or sales yet, with unsupervised FSD approval still a near-term gate. SpaceX outlined Starship Flight 14 for NET Tue Sep 22 (pending approval): first intended Earth orbit (~6 passes / ~10 hours), deploy 26 Starlink V3, deorbit burn, Pacific splashdown west of Chile (spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-14). After a Sep 15 scrub, Falcon 9 launched USSF-259 (classified Space Force) from Vandenberg SLC-4E on Sep 16 with OCISLY booster recovery. In the Grok lane: Musk roadmap posts (mid-Sep) described further polish on Grok 4.7 and Grok 4.8 moving from pretrain into RL; xAI's Grok Bot Galaxy ran Sep 15–17 at The Howard in San Francisco with livestream.