US DOT Proposes Rule to Allow Autonomous Vehicles Without Brake Pedals

The Trump administration’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has proposed new changes to federal vehicle regulations that would allow companies to skip including brake pedals in “vehicles designed to be driven exclusively by automated driving systems.”

The proposal, if adopted, would remove a major regulatory barrier for companies like Tesla and Zoox, which are developing vehicles intended to be fully autonomous, without a steering wheel or pedals. The public will now have 30 days to comment on the proposal before the DOT decides whether to approve the changes.

This is the latest of a series of proposed changes to vehicle laws from the Trump DOT. Late last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed removing a number of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) requirements around windshield wiping and defogging systems, and tire placards.

President Biden was also working in this direction while in office. During his administration, the NHTSA proposed and ultimately finalized a rule that allowed autonomous vehicles to operate without steering wheels.

Currently, any company developing an autonomous vehicle that is missing parts required by the FMVSS has to request an exemption from the federal government. Even if the exemption is granted, regulations restrict how many such exempted vehicles can be on the road.

Removing requirements for parts like brake pedals will theoretically allow companies to get autonomous vehicles on the road quicker, according to the NHTSA.

“We are at the cusp of the greatest technological revolution in vehicle technology since the innovation of the Model T,” NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said in a statement. “If we want America to lead the way, we have to reimagine our regulatory framework. That’s why under Secretary Sean Duffy’s AV Framework, NHTSA is tearing down pointless barriers to innovative designs while strengthening the fundamental safety requirements that matter and holding AV developers accountable for safe performance.”

Tesla has spent the last few years developing a two-seater car it calls the Cybercab that is intended to operate without a steering wheel or pedals. The company has never applied for an exemption to the FMVSS standards requiring those controls. Instead, CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly said that his company would deploy the vehicles nationwide once regulatory approval was granted.

In the meantime, Tesla has spent the last year operating a small robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. The company began the service with safety drivers in the front seats, but has steadily removed those drivers, leaving the cars to operate “unsupervised.” The company has admitted to the NHTSA that it is using teleoperators to monitor and, in some rare cases, move the vehicles remotely at low speeds after crashes or to avoid obstacles.

Zoox, which is owned by Amazon, applied for and was granted an exemption from FMVSS standards last year so it could demonstrate its purpose-built robotaxi. The company has since applied for, and is waiting on, another exemption to operate that robotaxi commercially.

Companies like Waymo, which use retrofitted or modified versions of regular vehicles (such as the Jaguar I-Pace), have been able to deploy as many robotaxis as they want since they already have manual controls.