US to explore allowing driverless cars without steering wheels Clio

The head of the top U.S. auto safety regulator said the agency would “absolutely” consider ending a requirement for self-driving cars to have steering wheels, a potential boon for Tesla Inc and other robotaxi companies rethinking traditional vehicle design.

“If you’re developing a vehicle that’s never going to be driven by a human operator, it doesn’t make sense to require manual controls,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Jonathan Morrison told CNBC on Thursday.

This comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) updated federal safety standards last month to remove the requirement for manual brake pedals in self-driving cars. The changes are part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to modernize self-driving car rules and could pave the way for purpose-built autonomous vehicles, including Tesla’s Cybercab, a two-seat electric vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has advocated for policy changes to support widespread commercial deployment of self-driving cars, including calling for a federal framework for self-driving cars. The automaker is working to grow its robotaxi business and has begun producing cybertaxi vehicles in recent months but has not yet deployed them widely.

The robotaxi market includes a number of well-known players, including Amazon.com Inc.’s Zoox and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, the leading paid robotaxi operator in the United States.

Morrison did not specify the timing or other details of any possible re-evaluation of the steering wheel rules. The changes to the brake pedal only apply to vehicles specifically designed to operate without a human driver, while existing rules for all other types of cars remain unchanged.

photo: Traffic conditions on Interstate 76 in Philadelphia. Photographer: Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg

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