Trump Transition Team Advocates For Abolishing Car-Crash Reporting Rule, Tesla Stands To Gain: Report

The Trump transition team reportedly wants the incoming administration to abolish the requirement to report car crashes. This move could potentially favor Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) led by Trump’s ally Elon Musk.

What Happened: The recommendation could potentially impede the government’s capacity to regulate and investigate the safety of vehicles equipped with automated driving systems, Reuters reported, citing a document. The rule requires automakers to report crashes if advanced driver assistance or autonomous driving technologies are engaged within 30 seconds of impact.

Tesla, under the leadership of the world’s wealthiest individual, Elon Musk, has been a strong critic of this requirement. The electric vehicle manufacturer has reported over 1,500 crashes to federal safety regulators under this program, the report noted. Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing major automakers, has also previously criticized the requirement.

The proposal to eliminate the rule was put forth by a transition team responsible for devising a 100-day strategy for automotive policy. The team deemed the requirement as a mandate for “excessive” data collection, the report said.

Why It Matters: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in a statement to Reuters emphasized the importance of such data for assessing the safety of emerging automated-driving technologies.

The agency said that it has received and analyzed data of over 2700 crashes since it established the rule in 2021 and the data influenced ten investigations into six companies and nine safety recalls involving four different companies.

The transition team also called upon the incoming administration to “liberalize” autonomous vehicle regulation and to enact “basic regulations to enable development” of the industry, Reuters reported.

Musk’s Tesla is developing a set of advanced driver assistance features called full self-driving with which it intends to enable vehicle autonomy in due time.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo courtesy: Tesla