By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration said Thursday it aims to speed up the deployment of self-driving vehicles but will maintain rules requiring reporting of safety incidents involving advanced vehicles.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday released a new framework to boost autonomous vehicles. “This administration understands that we’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” Duffy said. “Our new framework will slash red tape.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it will expand a program to exempt some self-driving vehicles from all safety requirements and will streamline but continue its requirement that vehicles equipped with certain advanced driver assistance systems or self-driving systems report safety incidents.
NHTSA is expanding its Automated Vehicle Exemption Program to now include domestically produced vehicles that will allow companies to operate non-compliant imported vehicles on U.S. roads. It is currently only open to foreign assembled models.
Automakers have sought to deploy vehicles on U.S. roads without human controls that do not comply with federal safety standards.
In 2022, General Motors filed a petition with NHTSA seeking permission to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles annually without human controls such as brake pedals or mirrors. GM withdrew the petition last year.
GM said in December it would halt funding of its self-driving Cruise robotaxi business after one of its robotaxis struck and seriously injured a pedestrian who had been hit by another vehicle in October 2023 and paid a $500,000 criminal fine to resolve a Justice Department probe. GM had invested more than $10 billion in Cruise since 2016.
Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo said in October that it had closed a $5.6 billion funding round led by Alphabet as it looks to expand its autonomous ride-hailing service. Last month, Waymo said it aimed to launch its fully autonomous ride-hailing service in the U.S. capital city next year.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
