The Trump administration may reduce NHTSA's authority over self-driving vehicles.
President-elect Donald Trump's transition team says the incoming administration wants to remove a requirement of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the equivalent of Transport Canada, according to a report by Autoblog.
That requirement forces automakers to report accidents involving their vehicles if the advanced driver assistance or autonomous driving technologies fitted to them were activated within 30 seconds of impact.
The information gathered helps NHTSA investigate and regulate self-driving vehicles. The agency's goal is the safety of all. However, a group within the transition team has criticized the “excessive” data collection requirement, as reported by Reuters.
Jason Miller, a senior advisor to Donald Trump's transition team, said the recommendations came from people outside the transition team.
Some 1,500 accidents involving Tesla vehicles
It's well known that Tesla doesn't like the NHTSA rule. With the wide distribution of its autonomous driving technologies, the EV maker seen some 1,500 accidents involving its vehicles reported. The company is therefore a major offender compared to other manufacturers.
Obviously, it’s impossible not to note a possible connection between the transition team’s intentions and Tesla boss Elon Musk’s increasingly close ties to Donald Trump.
The NHTSA data shows that 40 of the 45 fatal accidents reported up to October 15, 2024 were caused by Tesla's autonomous driving system (FSD = Full Self Driving).
Tesla isn't the only manufacturer criticizing the NHTSA rule. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing most major manufacturers with the exception of Tesla, has also criticized the requirement, calling it “burdensome”.
Burdensome or not, expert have concluded the rule has proven beneficial for automotive safety as a whole.
The NHTSA says more than 2,700 accidents have been reported by numerous manufacturers since the rule’s inception in 2021. Those have led to 10 investigations implicating six different manufacturers and nine safety recalls involving four different companies.
One of these investigations concerned GM's Cruise, the autonomous cab division that was recently dissolved.
Tesla's standards
In Tesla's defense, many argue that the company reports better data than other manufacturers, such as real-time accident data, which translates into higher accident data. And as mentioned, Tesla has many more self-driving vehicles on the road, which means there are more situations likely to result in accidents involving its vehicles.
Safety
At the end of the day, what counts is not to point the finger at any one carmaker, but to ensure public safety. Easing regulations on self-driving vehicles to speed up development and implementation could and most likely will impact that safety. Some have been calling for even more extensive regulations to ensure that self-driving vehicles are truly safe for everyday use.
We'll know more after January 20, when the new occupant of the White House takes office.