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Muhamad Yehia.. Cairo
The Trump administration is loosening regulations to help US carmakers like Elon Musk’s Tesla develop self-driving cars and compete with Chinese rivals.
American companies developing self-driving cars will be granted exemptions from certain federal safety regulations for testing purposes, the US Department of Transportation announced on Thursday.
The department also said it will streamline crash reporting requirements involving self-driving software that billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has criticised as onerous and will work towards creating a unified set of national rules to replace the current patchwork of state-level regulations.
“We’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “Our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standar
The new exemption procedures will allow US automakers to apply to skip certain safety rules for self-driving vehicles if they are used only for research, demonstrations and other non-commercial purposes
The exemptions were in place previously for foreign, imported vehicles whose home country rules may be different from those in the US.
Self-driving Tesla taxis
The decision comes a day after Musk confirmed on a conference call with Tesla investors that the electric vehicle maker will begin a rollout of self-driving Tesla taxis in Austin, Texas, in June.
It’s not clear how the exemptions from National Traffic Safety Administration rules will affect Tesla specifically. The company has pinned its future on complete automation of its cars, but it is facing stiff competition now from rivals, especially China automaker BYD
The crash reporting rule being changed has drawn criticism from Musk as too burdensome and unfair. Tesla has reported many of the total crashes under the rule in part because it is the biggest seller of partially self-driving vehicles in the US.
Traffic safety watchdogs had feared that the Trump administration would eliminate the reporting rule.
The Transportation Department’s statement on Thursday said reporting will be loosened to “remove unnecessary and duplicative” requirements, but that the obligation to report crashes will remain.
