Nationwide Autonomy Within a Year

In Pittsburgh last week, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) administrator Jonathan Morrison gave a telling speech.

While speaking at the AI Horizons PGH Summit, Morrison spoke about the importance of automated driving systems (ADS)… and the urgency the NHTSA has to update its outdated Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).

The standards must become relevant for autonomous vehicles, he argued.

What conspicuous timing.

A Regulatory Trojan Horse

Earlier this month, with the official launch of Tesla’s Cybercab, I published The Bleeding Edge – Cybercab’s Regulatory Trojan Horse…

And I made the key point that Tesla (TSLA) didn’t apply for an exemption to the current FMVSS standards – as all other autonomous driving companies have done.

Tesla certified its autonomous driving technology and its Cybercabs/Robotaxis against all relevant safety standards.

This was intentional.

There is no point in trying to meet standards that involve a brake pedal or a steering wheel –  or, for that matter, anything pertaining to a human driver – because there aren’t any. Those standards don’t apply.

Here’s part of what I wrote…

The nuance here is that the standards weren’t designed for vehicles that have no steering wheel, no gas pedal, or brake pedal.

In other words, it can’t be held as non-compliant for standards related to those automotive parts.

Tesla’s strategy is to force the issue of the need for the NHTSA to update its safety standards to account for fully autonomous vehicles.

And by doing so, this would make autonomous regulations and standards a national issue, rather than one that is regulated state-by-state.

One approval, at once, rather than a slow rollout.

It’s now very clear that Tesla and the NHTSA have been working closely together – especially after hearing Morrison’s speech.

His framework was just common sense:

And so many of our regulations were designed when no one envisioned a vehicle without a human driver, and therefore require or reference manual controls. This means that the technology of the future is often tethered to the regulations of the past. So we are working diligently on much-needed FMVSS updates to account for new designs enabled by automated driving systems, without compromising safety.

Throughout his speech, there was a sense of urgency concerning the NHTSA and the need to upgrade the safety standards for autonomous vehicles.

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Autonomy Is Already Everywhere

Of course, for any of us who read The Bleeding Edge, this comes as no surprise.

Autonomous vehicles are everywhere in the U.S., and they’re not going away… they’re multiplying.

Not only are Cybercabs now in 114 locations across 25 states, but Waymos are now operating in eight states.

And there are currently almost 1.5 million Tesla owners/lessees who are using its full self-driving (FSD) software.  I, of course, am one of them.

On any given day that I am out and about, I see at least a couple of people being driven by their cars.

This is why there is such a sense of urgency.

Autonomous driving is already here, and it is widely employed in every state when we include Tesla’s FSD users.

Safety standards must be updated quickly to support explosive economic growth in this sector. It’s already overdue.

PGH is a common abbreviation for Pittsburgh, and the decision to make the speech there wasn’t a coincidence, either.

Yes, Administrator Morrison went to the University of Pittsburgh, but that wasn’t the reason.

Autonomous Pittsburgh

Outside of Tesla’s autonomous driving lab, Pittsburgh has been the second-most important hub for autonomous driving technology of the last decade.

This is because it is the home of Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC), which was a leading research laboratory for autonomous driving more than a decade ago.

NREC also became the center of attention in 2015, when Uber (UBER) poached about 50 researchers from the laboratory with large compensation packages to seed its Autonomous Technologies Group.

It decimated Carnegie Mellon’s robotics center. The poaching by Uber took years for the school to recover from.

Uber’s actions stung even more when, five years later, Uber literally gave up on autonomous driving.

It no longer wanted to fund the research and development and falsely declared that the technology was more than a decade away from being available to the public.

Uber paid $400 million to Aurora (AUR) in 2020 for Aurora to take over its Autonomous Technologies Group. (If you’re interested in reading my coverage of this, here’s The Bleeding Edge – Uber Sells Its Self-Driving Unit to Startup Aurora.)

In exchange, Uber received 26% of Aurora.

Driverless Freight

Uber sold a large chunk of its shares in Aurora this year and now owns about 9.2% of Aurora’s outstanding shares.

Aurora is a leader in autonomous driving, but it has focused on freight hauling trucks.

And in July, the company announced its second-generation trucks, shown below, capable of fully autonomous driving without anyone behind the wheel.

Aurora’s Second-Generation Truck | Source: Aurora

Aurora is headquartered in Pittsburgh – another good reason for Morrison to present there.

As of June, Aurora had completed 440,000 fully autonomous miles with its technology in freight-hauling applications.

Aurora uses a third party, Roush, to retrofit trucks with Aurora’s autonomous driving hardware and software.

By the end of the year, it will have the ability to produce 1,000 autonomous trucks annually.

There has long been a very large labor shortage in truck drivers, especially for long-haul freight.

Aurora’s technology – which is autonomous technology retrofitted to Class 8 diesel-powered trucks, combined with the electric Tesla Semi, of which the long-range version has a range of 500 miles – provides a solution for the entire industry… one that supports economic growth.

Tesla Semi | Source: Tesla

The economic incentives for the NHTSA to get the updated safety standards in place are simple to understand…

A $400 Billion Prize

The combined economic benefit and productivity improvements for both autonomous consumer and autonomous freight transportation are estimated to be worth $300-400 billion a year in revenue by 2035.

Freedom of Movement

But putting the economic benefits aside, Morrison was also smart to point out the positive impact of autonomous technology on quality of life.

He said…

Because access to independent transportation is access to freedom.

We’re looking to support innovation because automated driving systems hold incredible potential promise, unlocking mobility options for senior citizens, people with disabilities, and others who are unable to or don’t want to drive for a variety of reasons – because they’ve been drinking or maybe just because they’ve had a bad day and a long flight and they just don’t want to talk to a stranger on their ride home. Importantly, this technology has the potential to enable full participation in our society and economy for the many left behind due to an inability to drive.

The incredible examples of this are already real stories affecting real people.

Senior citizens are already benefiting from this technology. Not only does it return their freedom of mobility, but it also keeps everyone a whole lot safer on the road.

Source: X @elonmusk

And for people with disabilities, autonomous driving technology is an absolute life changer.

John Foppe, shown below, was born without arms. Before autonomous driving, he didn’t have any options.

With Tesla’s FSD, John can be driven safely without any needed assistance.

Source: X @Tesla

One of my closest friends is a quadriplegic, and it was life-changing once he got his Tesla with full self-driving.

It’s amazing to me how little media coverage these examples have received.

Frozen Waymos

Meanwhile, we’re still to believe that Waymo is the most advanced autonomous driving technology available today…

While on stage in Pittsburgh, Morrison called out Waymo, without naming them, referring to a recent incident that occurred in San Francisco when Waymos “froze” in an emergency situation, resulting in blocking first responders from getting to where they needed to go…

We’ve also recently issued a call to action to AV developers based upon a clear pattern of AVs interfering with law enforcement and other first responders, directing them to develop solutions.

It’s very exciting to see a regulator working so closely with industry and aggressively pushing ahead to adapt safety standards to advanced technology like autonomous driving.

This is very bullish for the industry, and my prediction is that we’ll see updated safety standards in less than 12 months.

This will enable the roll-out of nationwide, unsupervised autonomous driving in the United States.

Everywhere, all at once.

Lives will be saved as a result, freedom of mobility will be enabled for those unable to drive safely, quality of life will improve, time will be recaptured, and the future of transportation will suddenly be apparent to all.

As I have always said, the killer application of the automotive industry has always been autonomous driving.

Drive free,

Jeff