Trump To Fast-Track Autonomous Car Rules, Which Would Help Tesla, Report Says
President-elect Trump’s transition team will prioritize the establishment of new federal rules governing autonomous cars, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Key among the changes would be new guidelines on street-legal vehicles that are built without any human controls.
Currently, autonomous vehicle operations are regulated at the state level and most of the vehicles deployed in ride-hailing services like Waymo’s still have steering wheels and pedals, even though there is no back up driver on board.
Tesla in October revealed a Robotaxi that has two seats and no driver controls, which it hopes to have in production and deployed in a ride-hailing serviced by 2026. It also showed a Robovan that could carry up to 20 passengers.
Read Also: 8 COOL FEATURES ON THE TESLA ROBOTAXI AND ROBOVAN
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is an advisor to President-elect Trump and one of the leaders of a proposed Department Of Government Efficiency that will be tasked with cutting government regulations and spending. Musk touched on the subject during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 23, prior to Trump’s election.
“I do think we should have a federal. Like autonomous vehicles should be approved,” Musk said. “It really needs to be — like a national approval is important. There’s a partner of government efficiency, I’ll try to help make that moving. And it took for every one, not just Tesla. But just like some things in the U.S. are state-by-state regulated like, for example, insurance, like incredibly to do it state by state for 50 states. And I think we should have this national approval process for autonomy.”
OFFICIAL: TESLA IS THE LAST ALL-AMERICAN CAR BRAND
Musk has previously said that autonomous vehicles could be worth trillions of dollars to the company and Tesla’s stock was up on Monday morning following Bloomberg’s report.
Along with Waymo, which currently has a service in operation in several cities, General Motors is working to relaunch its Cruise autonomous ride-hailing platform after taking it offline last year in the wake of a pedestrian accident in San Francisco.
Read This Next
