Federal regulation of fully autonomous vehicles has been stalled for a while. The current rules from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) say manufacturers can deploy up to 2,500 autonomous vehicles per year, and legislative efforts during the Biden and Trump administrations to raise that number didn’t go anywhere. However, now that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a close lieutenant of President Trump as he prepares for his second term, those rules could finally loosen a bit.
Bloomberg reports that Trump’s transition team plans to make loosening the federal regulation of self-driving cars a priority for the 45th and 47th president’s Transportation Department, according to anonymous sources. If it goes through, it would be an obvious benefit to Musk and his plans for his own fleet of robotaxis.
Elon Musk showed the world prototypes of the Tesla Cybercab and Tesla Robovan at the “We, Robot” conference in October. They’re both fully autonomous concepts without pedals or steering wheels, and Musk optimistically predicted the Cybercab two-seater will begin production in 2026.
That sounded overly ambitious in October, but that was before Trump was bound for the White House again, this time with a transition team heavily influenced by Musk himself. While analysts are speculating that the increasingly likely elimination of the federal EV tax credit would be bad for Tesla, aggressive deregulation of autonomous vehicles would open up possibilities in a new area of business that Tesla is already developing.
Naturally, AV deregulation would also benefit GM’s autonomous mobility subsidiary, Cruise. GM Authority reported last week that Cruise was facing a $500,000 criminal fine for falsifying a report regarding the infamous October 2023 accident in which a Cruise AV dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in San Francisco.
It’s unclear how federal deregulation would affect the prevalence of driverless autonomous vehicles nationwide since states have their own regulations. If the suggested deregulation goes through at the federal level, it would likely increase the total number of robotaxis in states where they’re already operating, including California, Arizona, and Texas. The best the feds can do on a state level is simply to encourage uniform regulations or create incentives for states that allow the deployment of AVs without human drivers.
Comments
It won’t make a difference. The fact of the matter is to get a system like this functioning safely and efficiently you need to take the human element out of the system completely. That means removing everything from manned vehicles, to pedestrians, to bicyclists. Barriers need to prevent people from getting on the streets and extra walkways and pathways will need to be made to accommodate them. Ontop of that a network of antennas will need to be installed so autonomous vehicles can talk to each other. Simply “reading lines, signs, traffic lights, and other cars, pedestrians, and cyclists” won’t work. Especially when the road lines are poorly maintained and incomplete ontop of roads that carry no markings. So which leads to the question that tells me this is DOA. Who is going to pay for all this? Certainly not my tax dollars.
I also would like to know how many people would be ok with giving up their freedoms to take their cars and explore at will. I don’t think you’d be able to do that with these cars. I imagine the idea would be you put in a destination and it goes wherever the route is most efficient and you will have no say in that. I get that many people living in urban areas like NYC and Chicago do this all the time without owning a car (I did it living in NYC as a bachelor) but once you have a kid its not easy and you really appreciate having your own car.
Not me.
The corruption runs deep, they will try to ban states from setting their own regulations.
And that would be a bad thing?
The last 4 years of Democrat BS, and you’re complaining about corruption?
I strongly suggest you get your liberal-infested cranium out of your Democrat-puckered rectum as soon as possible.
I strongly suggest that you educate yourself on accepting a civilized dialog with people who are not sharing your opinions.
Elon always hated the NHTSA recall regulations, you can bet those will be on the chopping block.
Good luck in the future getting automakers to fix and pay for safety related repairs.
Sure, Ms. WEF.
The Chaos is already daily.
NO! We do not need more of these menaces. They are an unnecessary waste of money. Keep them in Disney and other theme parks
Going forward, there will be no accounting for stupid.
Cool, I don’t want anyone taking my keys away when I’m 85.