According to Reuters, a document shows that the Trump team plans to abolish the rule of “requiring automakers to report self-driving car collision data”, saying the rule leads to “excessive data collection”.
It will put an additional burden on carmakers, especially in self-driving cars.
The move could undermine the US government’s ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles equipped with self-driving systems.
According to the vehicle accident report of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), automakers are required to provide accident data when the car uses advanced driving assistance systems and automation technology within 30 seconds before the collision.
NHTSA said in a statement that the data are critical to assessing the safety of emerging self-driving technologies without which NHTSA would not be able to easily understand the cause of the collision.
NHTSA said it had received and analyzed data on more than 2700 crashes since it established accident reporting rules in 2021.
The data affected 10 investigations of six companies and nine safety recalls involving four different companies, NHTSA added.
, Model Y.
Photo: Tesla, however, two sources said that US electric carmaker Tesla wants to abolish the accident reporting rule because the company believes that the data released by NHTSA will mislead consumers’ perception of Tesla’s safety.
The source said Tesla thought the accident reporting rules were unfair because the company thought it reported more detailed data than other automakers, which made Tesla seem to account for an excessive proportion of accidents involving advanced driving assistance systems.
According to a Reuters analysis of NHTSA crash data, Tesla accounted for 40 of the 45 fatal accidents reported by NHTSA as of October 15 this year.
Tesla accidents investigated by NHTSA according to auto accident reporting rules include: a fatal accident in Virginia in 2023, in which a “Autopilot” Tesla crashed into a tractor trailer.
in the same year, in California, a “Autopilot” Tesla crashed into a fire engine, killing Tesla’s driver and injuring four firefighters.
Two former NHTSA employees said that Tesla launched a recall in 2023 for driving aids, and that self-driving car accident reporting requirements were crucial in the NHTSA investigation of Tesla’s driving aids.
Therefore, the abolition of the self-driving car accident reporting requirement is particularly beneficial to Tesla.
According to sources, in recent years, Tesla executives and Tesla CEO Musk discussed the need to push for the abolition of car accident reporting rules.
However, NHTSA warns that self-driving car crash data should not be used to compare the safety of one carmaker with another because different companies collect accident information in different ways.
Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina (University of South Carolina) who specializes in self-driving, said Tesla collected real-time crash data that other automakers would not collect, and the proportion of accidents reported was likely to be “much larger” than other carmakers.
Tesla’s accidents involving driving assistance technology may also occur more frequently, Bryant Walker Smith said, because the company has more cars equipped with self-driving functions on the road, and Tesla drivers use these systems more frequently, which means Tesla may be involved in self-driving car accidents more frequently than other car companies.
The Trump team, Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment on the reports.
It is not clear whether and what role Musk played in the Trump team’s proposal to remove self-driving car accident reporting rules, or the possibility that the Trump team will implement these recommendations.
The American Automotive Innovation Alliance (Alliance for Automotive Innovation), an industry group that represents most large automakers except Tesla, has also criticized the self-driving car accident report as too cumbersome.
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