
NHTSA has even exempted some robotaxis from its safety standards, and described many potential benefits of these technologies, including improved quality of life, safer roads, shorter commutes, lower energy usage and more access to jobs. But NHTSA and Congress have spent recent years swept away in the excitement and lobbying surrounding a more eye-catching technology - fully autonomous vehicles. The California DMV has become the first US government entity to formally move against the naming of “full self-driving.”Īutomotive regulation has traditionally fallen to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation, and Congress, which can push NHTSA to regulate specific things like driver-assist technology. An actual impact may instead come from an unglamorous public agency, one that many Americans think of as only capable of offering customers long wait times: the Department of Motor Vehicles.
#California department of business oversight driver
The technology is designed to navigate local roads with steering, braking and acceleration, but it requires an attentive human driver who’s ready to take control and correct the system, which “may do the wrong thing at the worst time,” Tesla warns.īut while these critics may have the traditional bully pulpit of the Senate or other institutions, they have no real power to change any policy on their own.

They’ve all warned that “full self-driving” isn’t really full self-driving. Tesla’s foil isn’t a silver-haired US Senator, world-class autonomous driving experts, or some of the country’s preeminent safety advocates.

“Full self-driving,” the controversially named driver-assist feature from Tesla, may have finally met its match.
