Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sounded regulatory alarms in February by firing 30 NHTSA staff, including members of its autonomous vehicle safety team, weakening oversight of technologies that could lead to self-driving car crash, like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.
The cuts targeted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) office of Vehicle Automation Safety, which evaluates technology risks, according to the Financial Times.
The move could cripple the agency’s ability to investigate Autopilot-linked crashes and set safety standards, amid a 37% rise in self-driving cars accidents reports since 2023.
NHTSA Layoffs Could Slow Tesla
One ex-NHTSA employee from the vehicle automation safety division said the firings would “deter NHTSA’s ability to understand self-driving technology” as the industry was already under examination.
Another called it “ironic” the shake-up might delay Tesla’s timeline for launching fully autonomous vehicles, given ongoing investigations into the EV giant’s self-driving cars technology.
Tesla is under NHTSA scrutiny after a rise in the accident rate of self-driving cars involving its FSD and Autopilot systems. Victims’ relatives who perished in Tesla-engaged crashes urged the US Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, to justify policies presented under the Biden administration requiring firms to report self-driving car crash.
They worry that Musk’s close connection to the Trump administration will influence investigations of such accidents from self-driving cars.
New Self-Driving Rules
Elon Musk insists that computer vision-based autonomous vehicles are the future, and sensor-based autonomous systems are “doomed”, and “a fool’s errand” compared to Tesla’s camera-based Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. Other companies like Waymo use a combination of sensors like lidar, cameras, and radar for their autonomous cars. Other companies utilize lidar and radar for their driver aid systems as well. However, that has led to gaps in Tesla’s system, contributing to accidents caused by self-driving cars.
Tesla’s problems are bigger than just Elon Musk.
The firings came shortly after NHTSA launched a new framework to reduce rules for autonomous cars. The proposal also requires automakers to provide regulators with more information, a step forward towards a more transparent framework in testing and developing autonomous driving vehicles.
While Tesla is pressured by increasingly intense regulations and its effort to push the autonomous vehicle market continues, a question remains: will the layoffs at the NHTSA create less strict rules or prevent monitoring of critical autonomous vehicle safety?
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