The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration plans to accelerate the development of automated vehicles by streamlining the exemption process for cars without driver controls.
Currently, automakers are required to obtain an exemption from federal safety standards to deploy self-driving cars without driver controls.
The Part 555 exemption will continue to allow automakers to sell up to 2,500 vehicles per year that do not fully comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, including cars that don't have traditional steering wheels, driver-operated brakes or rearview mirrors, the
safety administration said Friday in a statement on its website.
"The Part 555 exemption process has been rightly criticized for taking years, bogging developers down in unnecessary red tape that makes it impossible to keep pace with the latest technologies," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in the statement.
The streamlined exemption also aims to expedite processing time and improve transparency, the agency said.
The move may benefit Tesla (TSLA) and other companies aiming to bring robotaxis to US roads, Bloomberg reported Friday. Tesla plans to start its initial robotaxi business in Austin, Texas, later this month, the report said.
Tesla shares rose 3.5% in recent Friday trading.
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