On Wednesday, Ford Motor Co and Volkswagen AG said they would shutter self-driving startup Argo AI, saying the technology was a long way off. The same is true when it comes to rules around the technology as well.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said this month he has “very high hopes for the theoretical possibility that self-driving cars and high-tech cars will save thousands and thousands of lives because human beings have a basically murderous track record as drivers of cars. But we’re not there yet.”
“We lag behind in shaping a regulatory framework that will foster this innovation while simultaneously protecting and encouraging all of the important benefits we believe autonomous vehicles are capable of delivering,” a dozen Democratic US senators wrote in April. In July, NHTSA, part of the US Department of Transportation, opened for comment petitions filed by General Motors GM.N and Ford that asked the regulatory agency to grant exemptions to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles without human controls like steering wheels and brake pedals annually per manufacturer. Neither automaker seeks approval to sell self-driving vehicles to consumers.
Cruise said the “overwhelming majority of public comments submitted on the Cruise Origin are positive, underscoring the vehicle’s sustainability and accessibility benefits and support for American jobs.”