NHTSA Proposes Dropping Manual Brake Pedal Mandate for Driverless Vehicles, Clearing a Path for Tesla's Cybercab

Overview

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed on June 25, 2026, to drop the federal requirement for manual brake pedals in vehicles designed to operate without a human driver, opening a 30-day public comment window, according to TechCrunch. The proposal amends Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 135, which “has governed light vehicle brake systems in passenger cars and light trucks since 1995,” according to a client alert from Crowell & Moring.

What We Know

Under the proposed rule, “manual brake control requirements, the foot pedal for the service brake and the hand or foot control for the parking brake, would only apply to vehicles that have manually operated driving controls,” per Crowell & Moring. Vehicles that retain a steering wheel or other manual controls would remain fully subject to the existing standard. NHTSA argues that “the inclusion of a manually operated driving control that directly overrides ADS operation could pose a safety risk through intentional or unintentional misuse by a vehicle passenger,” according to The Register.

NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison framed the proposal in sweeping terms: “We are at the cusp of the greatest technological revolution in vehicle technology since the innovation of the Model T. If we want America to lead the way, we have to reimagine our regulatory framework. That’s why under Secretary Sean Duffy’s AV Framework, NHTSA is tearing down pointless barriers to innovative designs while strengthening the fundamental safety requirements that matter and holding AV developers accountable for safe performance,” he said, according to TechCrunch.

The rule change would directly benefit Tesla, which “has spent the last few years developing a two-seater car it calls the Cybercab that is intended to operate without a steering wheel or pedals,” TechCrunch reported, and which is currently “testing Cybercabs without human inputs in Austin,” according to The Drive. Zoox, owned by Amazon, “applied for and was granted an exemption from FMVSS standards last year so it could demonstrate its purpose-built robotaxi” and “has since applied for, and is waiting on, another exemption to operate that robotaxi commercially,” per TechCrunch. Waymo, by contrast, relies on “retrofitted or modified versions of regular vehicles (such as the Jaguar I-Pace)” and has “been able to deploy as many robotaxis as they want since they already have manual controls,” according to TechCrunch — meaning the new rule mainly clears a path for purpose-built vehicles rather than Waymo’s current fleet.

The proposal also changes how stopping performance is measured and displayed. For ADS-equipped vehicles, stopping-distance testing would measure “from the point at which the electronic braking command is transmitted,” rather than from pedal force, and the brake warning telltale — traditionally aimed at a driver — would instead need to be “clearly visible to occupants in all designated seating positions,” according to Crowell & Moring. NHTSA also proposed eliminating a decades-old parking-brake “friction-type specification,” per the firm, “recognizing that modern vehicle technology has rendered it unnecessary.”

Alongside the brake-pedal proposal, NHTSA withdrew a separate, previously proposed voluntary reporting framework known as the AV STEP program, citing expected low industry participation, according to Crowell & Moring. The agency is accepting public comments on the proposal, filed under docket number NHTSA-2026-0728, through July 27, 2026, The Register reported.

The move follows a similar direction set under the prior administration: “President Biden was also working in this direction while in office. During his administration, the NHTSA proposed and ultimately finalized a rule that allowed autonomous vehicles to operate without steering wheels,” TechCrunch reported.

What We Don’t Know

NHTSA’s proposal leaves open how occupants would be able to intervene in an emergency. The agency “is taking no position at this time as to how a passenger should be able to direct an ADS-operated vehicle to stop, or how the ADS should respond to such direction,” according to The Drive.

The proposal arrives against a backdrop of safety incidents that critics have pointed to in AV deployments so far, “from Waymo vehicles entering flooded roads and running over dogs to fatal crashes involving Tesla’s Autopilot,” as The Register noted, alongside a separate recall of “over 3,800 robotaxis” by Waymo “over risk entering closed construction zones,” according to The Drive. The Register also reported that NHTSA’s autonomous-vehicle regulatory staff was reduced when “the agency was gutted during Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s time heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the cuts falling particularly hard on staff responsible for regulating self-driving vehicles.” NHTSA’s own proposal acknowledges that ADS technology “is still maturing and many of the potential benefits are yet to be realized,” The Register reported.

Whether the rule survives the comment period, and in what form NHTSA ultimately finalizes it, remains undetermined. As previously reported, Tesla began mass-producing the pedal-less, wheel-less Cybercab at Giga Texas even as its regulatory path remained an open question — a question this proposal is aimed squarely at resolving.