Skip to main content

The White House will promote autonomous cars without forcing you to use one

Volvo 360c concept
Ronan Glon/Digital Trends

The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) has taken important steps to simplify the legal framework surrounding autonomous vehicles. The Trump administration published a verbose policy initiative that outlines the steps it will take to give car and technology companies more freedom to develop, test, and ultimately sell the technology to the public.

Recommended Videos

In an 80-page document, transportation secretary Elaine Chao recognized the pros and cons of self-driving vehicles. On one hand, they can lead to safer roads while making life more productive, more relaxing, or both for the millions of commuters across America. On the other hand, getting to that point requires incorporating new risks into the automotive landscape. Elaine Herzberg’s death illustrated one of the more extreme scenarios.

The DOT promises to adopt flexible policies that prioritize safety while remaining technology-neutral. It wants to foster competition rather than to create a monopoly by giving certain companies an advantage in this highly lucrative field. It hasn’t outlined the changes it will make yet, however.

“U.S. DOT will modernize or eliminate outdated regulations that unnecessarily impede the development of automated vehicles or that do not address critical safety needs. Whenever possible, the department will support the development of voluntary, consensus-based technical standards and approaches that are flexible and adaptable over time,” the initiative stressed.

The government has started working toward the establishment of a national standard for testing self-driving cars. Laws currently vary from state to state and, sometimes, from city to city. For example, California’s Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) shut down Uber’s self-driving program in December 2016 when the company refused to apply for a testing permit in San Francisco. Uber swiftly moved its program to Phoenix, Arizona, after the governor’s office gave it a blank check.

The White House will invest in infrastructure upgrades when needed, especially when it comes to crucial vehicle-to-anything (V2X) technology, but it won’t directly fund the development of autonomous technology. That not-insignificant burden will continue to fall on the lap of the companies who want to reap the rewards, like Uber, General Motors, and Volvo. Chao’s statement also made it clear that the DOT’s goal isn’t to phase out human-driven cars and replace every vehicle on the road with one that’s autonomous. It wants to let motorists choose how they get around.

“U.S. DOT embraces the freedom of the open road, which includes the freedom for Americans to drive their own vehicles. We envision an environment in which automated vehicles operate alongside conventional, manually driven vehicles and other road users,” it concluded.

Ronan Glon
Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…
An autonomous car in San Francisco got stuck in wet concrete
A Cruise autonomous car.

A self-driving car operated by General Motors-backed Cruise got stuck on Tuesday when it drove into a patch of wet concrete.

The incident happened in San Francisco and occurred just days after California's Public Utilities Commission made a landmark decision when it voted to allow autonomous-car companies Cruise and Waymo to expand their paid ridesharing services in the city to all hours of the day instead of just quieter periods.

Read more
Waymo taps the brakes on its autonomous-trucking project
A Waymo autonomous trick undergoing testing on a highway.

Six years after launching its autonomous-truck program, Waymo has said it’s decided to focus more on developing its ridesharing ambitions using its self-driving cars and minivans.

The California-based, Alphabet-owned company said its decision to effectively put autonomous trucking on the back burner is down to the “tremendous momentum and substantial commercial opportunity” that it’s seeing with the pilot ridesharing service it launched in Arizona in 2018 before taking it to several other states. Customers involved in the program can use an app to call a Waymo driverless car in the same way they would book an Uber.

Read more
The best used car websites in 2023
Carvana Austin

EVs are selling like hotcakes, and as such, it can feel like it's a little hard to get your hands on one. Add in the fact that most of the decent EVs cost more than $40,000, and you might find that a used car is more compelling than ever. Shopping used is a great alternative to long waiting lists and inflated prices, and a used EV may even be eligible for tax rebates if you read the fine print.

But where should you look to find one?

Read more