Tesla “has made it very clear that the future is autonomous,” CEO Elon Musk said in October, shortly after unveiling the Cybercab, Tesla's self-driving robotaxi.
It now appears that Musk, who was recently nominated to lead a newly created “Department of Government Efficiency,” is sharing his crystal ball with the incoming Trump administration.
The Trump transition team plans to make a federal framework for self-driving vehicles the Transportation Department's top priority, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter.
“This would be a major step forward in easing U.S. regulations for self-driving cars and would provide a significant tailwind to Tesla’s autonomous and AI vision through 2025,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
According to the report, new federal regulations currently being discussed would not only loosen regulations on self-driving vehicles, but also increase the cap on the number of autonomous vehicles allowed on public roads.
Under current regulations, each manufacturer is allowed to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles per year in the United States. Previous efforts to register up to 100,000 vehicles have so far failed.
Regulators such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of autonomous vehicles.
General Motors-backed Cruise was forced to suspend operations last year after a fatal collision. Earlier this year, NHTSA also opened an investigation into Alphabet-owned Waymo following several incidents.
Waymo currently operates the only functioning robotaxi service in the United States, with a fleet of approximately 700 self-driving vehicles operating in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
While Tesla has already been in talks with ride-hailing service Uber about an upcoming robotaxi service, the company's full self-driving software (FSD) – as currently used in regular Tesla models – has also come under intense scrutiny from regulators.
Last month, NHTSA opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with FSD software after three collisions and one fatal accident were reported. The regulator also asked Tesla not to make misleading claims about FSD's autonomous capability and to reiterate that the software only provides a driver assistance/assistance system.
Comments are closed.