(Reuters) - As Tesla’s electric-vehicle sales have flattened this year, CEO Elon Musk has increasingly staked the company’s future on his vision for self-driving robotaxis, despite the massive technological and regulatory obstacles in delivering them.
Now Musk - as one of President-elect Donald Trump's biggest backers - may have the influence to help break through those regulatory roadblocks.
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currently faces a diverse landscape of state driverless-vehicle laws
that Musk blasted in an Oct. 23 earnings call, calling it “incredibly
painful to do it state-by-state.” He signaled he would advocate for one
federal approval process if Trump won and followed through on a promise
to name Musk “efficiency czar.”
“If there’s a department of government efficiency,” Musk said, “I’ll try to help make that happen.”
On Tuesday, Trump tapped Musk and another ally to lead such an entity, which is not a government agency. It remains unclear how the organization will function.
Musk's sway
is likely to extend beyond efficiency. The billionaire, who gave at
least $119 million to a pro-Trump group during the campaign, is expected
to influence the president-elect’s pick for the next Transportation
Department secretary, according to a person close to Musk and Trump’s
transition planning. That department, which includes the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), regulates automakers and
could push through significant changes to the self-driving rules at a
national level.
But
even if Musk secures favorable regulation, Tesla would still face steep
technological and legal hurdles in deploying driverless vehicles, along
with questions over how to insure them, according to Reuters'
interviews with nine regulatory and legal experts and a review of U.S.
state driverless-vehicle laws.
Tesla and Musk did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
At
present, Tesla remains years behind rivals in California, by far the
carmaker's largest U.S. market and a primary testing ground for the
autonomous-vehicle industry. Other companies have navigated California’s
regulatory maze and completed millions of autonomous-vehicle testing
miles under state oversight, according to a Reuters review of state
regulatory data.
If
Musk can succeed in securing federal regulations or laws that preempt
state oversight, experts in autonomous-vehicle regulation said, it could
allow Tesla to sidestep regulations in California.
Tesla
has logged just 562 testing miles since 2016 and hasn’t filed
autonomous-driving reports to California regulators since 2019, state
records show. Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O)
Waymo, by comparison, logged more than 13 million testing miles and
secured seven different regulatory approvals between 2014 and 2023, when
it received approval to charge passengers for rides in driverless
robotaxis. Waymo is among just three companies with California permits
to commercially operate driverless vehicles and the only one approved to
operate a robotaxi fleet anything like what Musk envisions.
Waymo declined to comment on Tesla's regulatory strategy or its approach to autonomous driving.
Tesla
currently has the lowest-level California permit, which allows testing
with human-driver oversight. Only six companies have driverless-testing
approvals. California data for those firms shows each tested with a
driver for a minimum of three years, often for millions of miles, before
securing driverless-testing approvals. Amazon's (AMZN.O)
Zoox, for instance, logged more than 1.6 million miles over three years. General Motors’ (GM.N)Cruise
declined to comment. Zoox said it also has a separate driverless
“pilot” permit from California regulators that allows the company to
pick up passengers without charging fares.
“Tesla
has that entire journey in front of them,” said Phil Koopman, a
Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor and autonomous-vehicle
safety expert. He said Tesla’s current “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system —
which actually requires a human driver paying strict attention — is
“nowhere near ready to be a robotaxi.”
Musk
says self-driving Teslas will be ready next year, echoing unfulfilled
promises dating back about a decade. He has increasingly bet Tesla’s
future on robotaxis since this spring, when Reuters reported the
automaker had scrapped plans
for a mass-market affordable car for human drivers amid softening
electric-vehicle demand and rising competition from cheap Chinese EVs.
He told investors last month at a Hollywood-style robotaxi unveiling
near Los Angeles that Tesla would deploy fully autonomous versions of
its Model 3 and Model Y next year in Texas and California. He also
unveiled a two-seat “Cybercab” robotaxi he says will start production in
2026 and cost “roughly $25,000.” Tesla stock fell 9% the next day as
some underwhelmed investors said Musk’s presentation lacked concrete
product details. Since the election, however, Tesla shares have jumped
more than 30%, adding nearly $200 billion in market value, as investors
expect friendlier autonomous-driving and artificial-intelligence
regulation.
‘BILLIONS OF MILES’
Tesla has lobbied for electric vehicle subsidies and other benefits over the years.
The
company for years has also supported a federal standard for autonomous
driving in discussions with Congress and NHTSA, but was unable to get
one in place, in part because of a divided Congress, said two people
familiar with the company’s strategy. Tesla in 2018 signed a letter
supporting a Senate bill that would have preempted some state regulation
of autonomous vehicles, but the legislation never got a full Senate
vote.
In recent months, Musk has emerged as a prominent member of Trump's inner circle.
[1/2]Model
Y cars are pictured during the opening ceremony of the new Tesla
Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022.
Patrick Pleul/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
He
spent election night at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago club and has
frequented the luxury compound since the former president’s Nov. 5
victory, according to sources and videos posted by Republican
operatives.
Musk
has attended at least one meeting at Mar-a-Lago about the appointment
of a senior cabinet position, Treasury secretary, according to a second
person familiar with the matter.
A
Trump spokesperson did not answer questions about autonomous driving
regulations or Musk's influence but said "our federal bureaucracy will
certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency."
Under
a Trump administration, NHTSA could design accommodating
autonomous-vehicle standards but a key question would be whether the
regulator could or would prevent states from passing their own stricter
rules, three legal and regulatory experts told Reuters.
A
Republican-controlled Congress also could enact a national approval
process that supersedes state laws. NHTSA has traditionally regulated
the design of vehicles while states primarily regulate drivers and set
traffic laws — a split that isn’t clear once the car itself becomes the
driver. Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law
professor who focuses on autonomous driving, said NHTSA could interpret
its authority more broadly if it “was being directed to achieve a
certain political outcome.”
Under
Trump, NHTSA could clear the path for more novel designs like that of
the Cybercab, which Musk says will have no steering wheel or pedals.
National autonomous-vehicle regulation is more important to Tesla than its rivals because Tesla has a different business model.
Musk’s strategy involves selling millions of vehicles that can drive
themselves anywhere on earth. Almost all other competitors, including
Waymo, operate robotaxi fleets in limited, comprehensively mapped zones
of specific cities.
Waymo
and others build more expensive robotaxis that are equipped with suites
of redundant technologies and sensors, including radar and lidar, which
uses lasers to detect objects and create three-dimensional images of a
vehicle’s surroundings. Tesla relies solely on “computer vision,” which
seeks to use cameras like humans use eyes, with artificial intelligence
that translates images into driving decisions.
Asked
on a July earnings call how he would overcome regulatory challenges,
Musk said Tesla would have “billions of miles” showing FSD is safer than
a human driver and that regulators would be “morally obligated to
approve.”
But
Tesla so far has little to show regulators. The California Department
of Motor Vehicles told Reuters Tesla had not sought driverless-testing
or deployment permits required to operate driverless vehicles on public
roads. California would be critical to any rollout of what Musk calls a
Tesla “robotaxi network,” which he has said could offer rides in both
Tesla- and customer-owned taxis. About 37% of all Teslas on U.S. roads
are in California, according to industry data provider Experian
Automotive.
Waymo is now the only company with California approval to charge passengers for rides in driverless taxis. It wasn't easy.
Waymo
first secured a permit in 2014 to test with a safety driver. It got a
driverless-testing permit four years later, in October 2018, after
logging more than 2.2 million test miles. It took three more years and
3.7 million more testing miles to secure approval from the California
DMV to commercially operate autonomous vehicles — with a human driver
onboard — in San Francisco and parts of San Mateo County. Waymo logged
another 7.4 million miles before winning approval in August 2023 to
charge customers for rides in driverless robotaxis in San Francisco,
state records show. Waymo also currently operates in Los Angeles and
Phoenix.
GM’s
Cruise also operated driverless-taxis in San Francisco but had its
permit suspended after an October 2023 incident where a Cruise vehicle
dragged a pedestrian who had been hit by another car for 20 feet.
LESS REGULATION, MORE LEGAL RISK
Tesla
faces different but still-difficult challenges in less-regulated states
including Texas, which has almost no restrictions and specifically
forbids cities from regulating driverless vehicles.
But
Tesla would face immense legal liability for crashes the moment it
claims its vehicles are fully autonomous. The automaker has until now blamed Tesla drivers in defending itself against lawsuits and regulatory investigations
over accidents involving FSD and Autopilot. Tesla argues it warns
drivers to pay attention because those systems aren’t fully autonomous.
If
Tesla felt comfortable deploying self-driving technology in
low-regulation states like Texas, then “presumably they would be doing
it,” said Smith, the University of South Carolina law professor. But
“once you say there is no need for a human to pay attention, then you’re
pointing the finger back at yourself” when it comes to crash liability.
Insuring
driverless Teslas would be another major challenge. Individual
consumers can’t currently buy a fully autonomous vehicle — and so no
insurance for one exists, said Bob Passmore, a vice president
specializing in home and auto insurance for the American Property
Casualty Insurance Association, a trade group. He said corporate
autonomous vehicle operators currently get insurance through commercial
policies or through specialty “surplus lines” policies for unusual
cases.
Many
state laws are similar to Texas, allowing registered driverless
vehicles mostly unfettered access to roads, according to a Reuters
review of the statutes. Others impose more restrictions: Nevada requires
driverless-vehicle firms to get a testing certificate and use employees
as safety drivers. Kentucky and South Dakota require vehicles to be
able to pull safely off the road if they encounter problems. Fifteen of
the 50 U.S. states have no laws specific to driverless-vehicles,
according to the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, a trade group.
Light
or nonexistent regulations could heighten the legal risk because
autonomous-vehicle companies couldn’t argue they complied with strict
government safety standards, said three experts in autonomous-driving
law. California’s tougher regulations help protect companies securing
approvals, which could provide “powerful” evidence for a defense if
permitted firms get sued over crashes, said William Widen, a University
of Miami law professor specializing in autonomous-vehicle liability.
"The
lawyers would always rather have the blessing of regulators," he said,
because it provides evidence that the company wasn't "behaving
recklessly or negligently, and that they complied with all applicable
laws."
Reporting by Chris Kirkham and Rachael Levy. Additional reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; editing by Brian Thevenot and Claudia Parsons
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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