What might a federal AV regulatory framework look like?

The AV sector is optimistic that a second Trump administration could bring about a federal regulatory framework that would enable wider-scale deployment of self-driving cars on US roads.

Tech Brew caught up with industry analysts and stakeholders on how the process of establishing federal regulations could play out and what could be included.

“Will a federal AV regulatory framework help to spur investor confidence, consumer confidence, customer confidence? Absolutely,” Rich Steiner, VP of government relations for autonomous trucking company Gatik AI, told us. “Whenever the feds weigh into anything, I think it raises the level of confidence across all elements of the ecosystem.”

What we know: Last month, Bloomberg reported that Trump’s transition team was homing in on federal AV regs as a key priority for the Department of Transportation. Details are still in the works, but Bloomberg said federal rules could be established via federal legislation and DOT rulemaking.

One key way the federal government oversees AVs is via the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), which are minimum requirements all vehicles must comply with. These include, for example, cars having driver controls like steering wheels and pedals––features that driverless cars theoretically don’t need. Companies can apply for an exemption, but NHTSA caps the number of vehicles that each manufacturer can deploy each year under such an exemption at 2,500.

But for the most part, AVs are currently regulated on a state-by-state basis; roughly half have passed legislation allowing AVs on their roads.

“At the moment, you have to get regulatory approval in Nevada, and then you have to get regulatory approval in California, and then you have to get it in Texas,” Paul Miller, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, told us. “It takes a while, and the requirements are different every time. So a well-thought-through federal framework––provided it’s…putting all of the relevant safeguards in place––would help everyone.”

Such a framework, in Miller’s view, must address questions around liability, and contain “very stringent safety and validation requirements.”

Wishlist: The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, which represents many major AV companies, last year released a set of recommendations for a federal policy framework that includes both federal legislation and updating DOT rules.

Its recommendations include:

• Establishing a “framework that outlines necessary statutory and regulatory elements critical to the AV industry.”
• Including all vehicle types.
• Raising NHTSA’s exemption cap “to a significantly larger number.”
• Directing NHTSA to undergo a rulemaking process for AV deployments.
• Having NHTSA establish “a national demonstration and deployment program for AV developers to evaluate the commercialization of AVs.”

Not so fast: Jeremy Carlson, an associate director who heads up autonomous driving research for S&P Global Mobility’s automotive team, told us that he, too, expects much of the focus to be on how FMVSS can better accommodate driverless vehicles.

“Addressing the core regulation of either raising the exemption cap, or actually updating the text in the [FMVSS] to account for vehicles without driver controls, one of those two has to happen,” he said. “That’s the first piece of this puzzle.”

He expressed skepticism, however, about the AV sector’s claims that a federal framework would lead to significantly more AV deployments: “Pretty much every company in this space at this point has worked within those confines and has not reached a cap or a limitation on the amount of demand for mobility that they’re able to support.”

“I do agree that it could be a factor longer term,” he added, “but I don’t think we’re at that stage of development and maturity of the industry yet.”