NHTSA has filed a proposed rule to modernize Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, the federal lighting standard, to cover autonomous vehicles without a steering wheel or pedals, naming Tesla's Cybercab directly in the filing, per Not a Tesla App and BASENOR.

The headline change is a new set of optional cyan "ADS marker lamps" that would signal when a vehicle is driving itself.

According to Not a Tesla App, the lamps would be permitted but not required on passenger cars, trucks, and buses, with one or two lamps on the front, each side, and rear, mounted at least 15 inches off the ground.

They would stay steadily lit rather than flash, switch on and off together, and light only when no one is expected to watch the road — meaning true driverless operation, not FSD (Supervised).

Vehicle lighting already carries a crowded vocabulary — red for braking, amber for indicators, white for forward-facing functions, flashing blue and red for emergency vehicles.

As WeRSM reports, NHTSA's proposed cyan would occupy a visually distinct space, giving operators including Waymo, Nuro, and Zoox a common way to communicate with pedestrians, police, and other drivers rather than letting each company invent its own visual language.

There is precedent: Mercedes tested turquoise lights for its Level 3 Drive Pilot system between 2023 and 2025 under California and Nevada approvals, though the company later moved away from that approach, per Not a Tesla App and WeRSM.

Concerns flagged by Not a Tesla App include the lights making vehicles a target or leading other road users to take more risks around them.

The cyan lamps are only the most visible part of a broader modernization.

According to Not a Tesla App, requirements for physical turn signal, hazard, and high-beam controls would apply only to vehicles with manual driving controls, letting systems like Cybercab's handle those functions without traditional switches, with some dashboard indicators also removed.

WeRSM adds that NHTSA is dropping old restrictions on vertical headlight layouts and would let integrated headlights be tested at manufacturer-specified voltages rather than only 12.8 volts, reflecting newer LED architectures.

BASENOR notes the proposal builds on a year-long sequence, including the June proposal dropping the manual brake pedal requirement for vehicles driven exclusively by an automated system — part of a deliberate push to scrub driver-centric assumptions from the FMVSS catalog.

Rulemakings rarely name a specific commercial product, and BASENOR argues the explicit Cybercab callout signals NHTSA is coordinating its regulatory calendar with vehicles already in development.

For Tesla, modernizing the underlying standards would remove the need for vehicle-by-vehicle exemptions — a cleaner, more scalable path to volume production.

Meanwhile the rollout continues: Not a Tesla App reports more than 300 Cybercabs are operating in Austin, Dallas rides are expected next month, and unsupervised FSD could reach the first customer vehicles in Q2 2027, per Tesla's Ashok Elluiswamy on the Q3 earnings call.

Tesla is also trying to sell its first Cybercabs to customers before year's end.

Per Not a Tesla App, the proposed changes will be published in the Federal Register on October 26, followed by a 30-day comment period; once that closes in late November, NHTSA still must finalize the rule, and BASENOR notes such rulemakings historically take six to eighteen months.

The lights remain optional, so automakers that don't want them need not add them.

And modernization does not mean automatic approval: WeRSM reports NHTSA still has an open investigation into how the Cybercab was certified for commercial deployment, given its lack of mirrors, pedals, and a steering wheel, and Not a Tesla App says Tesla recently received an extension to respond to the probe.

Regulators appear willing to rewrite the rules for driverless cars while still checking whether individual companies can justify their designs.