Tesla
President-elect Donald Trump to set new autonomous vehicles rules that could benefit Tesla
President-elect Donald Trump will set up new guidelines for autonomous vehicles and operations to ease robotaxis and eventually clear a major hurdle in Tesla’s future fully autonomous driving dream.
Bloomberg reported that the new Trump administration will include advisors and officials who will create a framework for full self-driving vehicles. This is considered one of the top priorities for the Transportation Department.
The change is necessary to remove roadblocks in the existing regulations that prohibit the use of autonomous vehicles at large scale through limited deployment. This applies to all vehicles without a steering wheels paddle or human drivers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) allows carmakers to deploy 2,500 autonomous vehicles per year under a granted exemption. A legislative was planned to increase this cap to 100,000 but failed.
The new efforts to speed up autonomous vehicles will include new policymakers to create a new framework. It’s also confirmed that a bipartisan law is under discussion to create federal rules for self-driving vehicles.
The earliest pick for this job could be Emil Michael, a former Uber executive. However, none of the selections have been finalized on this matter.
This ease in regulation can benefit Tesla’s plans around full autonomy. In October, Tesla unveiled Cybercab and Cybervan, two of the latest autonomous driving vehicles.
The company initially focused on the former, featuring a new design and running full self-driving technologies. It has no steering wheel or paddles, Cybercab also has two passenger seats with room for passenger luggage in the rear.
Tesla will mass produce this new robotaxi in 2026 and include it in the robotaxi fleet by the following year.
In the meantime, it has plans to introduce autonomous driving taxis in Texas and California with an existing vehicle lineup by 2025.
The EV maker has filed for regulatory approval for these states and begin services as soon as possible.
