The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has proposed a new national framework that could pave the way for companies to deploy autonomous vehicles without traditional manual driving controls, such as steering wheels, pedals, and sideview mirrors, on a large scale. The proposed guidelines, part of the ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency and Evaluation Program (AV STEP), aim to allow NHTSA to greenlight the sale and commercialization of autonomous vehicles that do not comply with federal safety standards due to the lack of manual controls.

Currently, autonomous vehicles with all their manual parts are allowed to operate on public roads without oversight from NHTSA. However, any AVs that cannot be taken over by a human driver require an exemption from the agency. The proposed framework would provide a voluntary program for companies to demonstrate their commitment to transparency by providing regular reporting on safety, which would give them an opportunity to participate in the program and share data related to the safety of their AVs.

The AV STEP program has two tiers: one for vehicles built with human controls, with fallback designs that can be managed by humans, and another for vehicles built without such controls. As more autonomous vehicles without manual controls begin to flood public streets, NHTSA hopes the program and data reporting would make the agency better equipped to address emerging risks associated with their deployment.

Companies participating in the program would need to submit data related to the safety of the design, development, and operations of their AVs. They would also be required to submit both periodic and event-triggered reports, such as crash reports, to NHTSA, which the agency would be at liberty to publish in the name of transparency.

The proposal comes as the autonomous vehicle industry has been anticipating NHTSA's framework since last year. Several companies, including Amazon-owned Zoox, Cruise, Einride, and Tesla, are already working on deploying autonomous vehicles without manual controls. Zoox, which recently started rolling out its toaster-like vehicles in San Francisco, claims it doesn't need an exemption from NHTSA because it has "self-certified" the safety of its vehicles, a claim that the agency is actively investigating.

However, not everyone is convinced that the proposed framework is a step in the right direction. Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, pointed out that the proposal was released shortly after NHTSA issued a set of studies touting the effect of federal safety standards in saving over 860,000 lives from 1968 to 2019. Chase argued that expanding the deployment of autonomous vehicles without the safety protections provided by federal safety standards seems premature and lacks independent research and data to support the action.

The proposal also comes at a time when President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has signaled a desire to quash a Biden-era requirement for car-crash reporting that Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk oppose. Tesla has the largest market share of vehicles with automated driving features in the U.S., and as such, the majority of the total reported crashes come from Teslas. The company has been targeted in several NHTSA investigations, some of which stemmed from the roughly 1,500 crashes the automaker reported to federal safety regulators.

Despite the controversy, NHTSA says it wants to collect crash data so it can keep up with the fast-moving industry in anticipation of one day establishing minimum standards for autonomous vehicle performance. The proposed framework is a significant step towards regulating the autonomous vehicle industry, and its implications will be closely watched by companies, regulators, and safety advocates alike.