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Self-drive car firms urge govt to lead on AV design and

performance

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Inaction risks losing AV lead to China, say AV firms

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - A group representing

self-driving car companies on Tuesday called on the U.S.

government to do more to speed the deployment of autonomous

vehicles and remove barriers to adoption.

"The federal government is the one that needs to lead when

it comes to vehicle design, construction and performance, and we

just have not seen enough action out of the federal government

in recent years," Jeff Farrah, who heads the Autonomous Vehicle

Industry Association, said in an interview.

The group includes Volkswagen Ford,

Alphabet's Waymo, Amazon.com's ( AMZN ) Zoox, Uber ( UBER )

and others.

The group released a policy framework calling on the U.S.

Department of Transportation (USDOT) to "assert its

responsibility over the design, construction, and performance of

autonomous vehicles and increase its efforts in key areas."

The group added that "federal inaction has created

regulatory uncertainty" and warned China is determined to take

the United States lead on autonomous vehicle technology.

"We want to make sure there is a clear pathway to getting

these next-generation vehicles on the road," said Farrah.

"We have been frustrated by the lack of progress."

In December 2023, the group and others called on the USDOT

to do more.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in an interview

on Monday the government was ensuring that self-driving cars

would be much better than human drivers.

"I think being very rigorous in these early stages is

helping these technologies start to meet their potential to save

lives," Buttigieg said, adding the oversight would boost public

acceptance.

The industry faces scrutiny after a pedestrian was seriously

injured in October 2023 by a General Motors Cruise

vehicle. The USDOT has opened investigations into self-driving

vehicles operated by Cruise, Waymo and Zoox.

The autonomous vehicle group wants Congress to clarify human

controls are unnecessary in automated vehicles meeting

performance standards and allow companies to disable a

self-driving vehicles' manual controls. It also called for

creating a national AV safety data repository that would be

available to state transportation agencies.

Last month, the USDOT proposed streamlining reviews of

petitions to deploy self-driving vehicles without human controls

like steering wheels or brake pedals.

Efforts in Congress to make it easier to deploy robotaxis on

U.S. roads without human controls have been stymied for years

but may be boosted when President-elect Donald Trump takes

office.

Reuters and other outlets have reported Trump wants to ease

deployment barriers for self-driving vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon

Musk, a close adviser to Trump, said in October the automaker

would roll out driverless ride-hailing services in 2025.