According to foreign media reports, recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued the final version of the "Driverless Car Passenger Protection Regulations", which clarifies that fully autonomous vehicles no longer need to be equipped with traditional steering wheel, brake or accelerator pedals and other manual control devices to meet occupant safety protection standards in collisions. According to the old rules, all vehicles must have a driver's seat, steering wheel and corresponding steering column, and the front row can only have one seat for passengers.
Rendering of a Tesla without a steering wheel
According to NHTSA, manually operated driver's seats are logically unnecessary for models that were designed to be fully autonomous. Despite these changes, fully autonomous vehicles still need to provide the same level of safety as traditional manually driven vehicles. Steven Cliff, deputy director of NHTSA, said: "While drivers change from humans to machines in vehicles equipped with fully autonomous driving, the need to keep people safe in the vehicles remains the same and must be integrated into the vehicle from the start."
Still, the rule has raised concerns among advocates for highway and auto safety (AHAS), who, according to Cathy Chase, the association's president, said the NHTSA's new rules do not publish minimum performance standards for fully autonomous vehicles. They also described the information provided by the Autonomous Vehicle Transparency and Safety Testing Engagement Program as "untrustworthy, disappointing and unreliable" in terms of the safety and performance of fully autonomous vehicles. Advocates recommend equipping each vehicle with more advanced driver assistance systems.
The fully autonomous vehicle of the future
But the new rules are good news for Musk and his Tesla. Previously, there were media reports that Tesla was expected to launch a fully autonomous driving model without a steering wheel and brake pedal in the future, an idea that could not be realized at the time due to regulatory restrictions, and with the implementation of the new regulations, this plan, at least in the legal constraints, no longer exists.