On December 16, according to media reports citing a document, the Trump transition team hopes the next government will cancel the regulation requiring collision data reporting for autonomous vehicles—which may just solve the worries of Trump's recent "close friend" Elon Musk concerning Tesla.

If the Trump administration really cancels this regulation, it will particularly benefit Tesla but may also weaken the USA government’s ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles equipped with autonomous driving systems.

Is the Trump team ready to address Musk's concerns?

In recent months, the relationship between Trump and Musk has been visibly "hot": during this year's election campaign, Musk spent over 0.25 billion USD helping Trump get elected; after winning the election, Trump reciprocated by announcing the establishment of a Department of Government Efficiency and appointed Musk as the department's leader.

Recently, it seems that Trump's transition team is considering canceling a regulation that Musk has always strongly opposed.

Previously, the USA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a regulation requiring Auto Manufacturers and fleet operators to report accident data involving advanced driver assistance or higher-level "autonomous driving systems." Musk has been very dissatisfied with this regulation, believing it targets Tesla.

Documents show that a team within the Trump transition team responsible for developing a 100-day strategy for auto policy proposed the cancellation of the aforementioned data reporting requirement. This team stated that the regulation is an authorization for "excessive" data collection.

In the Tesla Earnings Reports conference call in October this year, Musk called for establishing a "federal approval process for autonomous vehicles" instead of the patchwork of state laws. He described these laws as "incredibly painful".

Musk also stated that he would leverage the position of "government efficiency czar" promised to him by Trump to push for such regulatory reforms.

Tesla particularly benefits.

Eliminating accident disclosure clause regulations would be particularly advantageous for Tesla.

NHTSA stated that since the agency established this rule in 2021, it has received and analyzed data from over 2,700 crash incidents. Tesla accounts for a large portion of the data reported — more than 1,500 crash data originated from Tesla.

This data influenced NHTSA's 10 investigations involving six companies, as well as nine safety recalls involving four different companies — and of course, Tesla is among them. According to data analysis, as of October 15, Tesla accounted for 40 out of the 45 fatal accidents investigated by NHTSA.

NHTSA previously stated in a release that car manufacturers reporting these data is crucial for assessing the safety of emerging autonomous driving technologies — without this data, NHTSA could not easily spot certain collision patterns that highlight safety issues.

However, two sources familiar with the thoughts of Tesla's executives revealed that Tesla has been very dissatisfied with this data reporting requirement, believing that the data provided by NHTSA misleads consumers' perceptions of Tesla's safety.

According to one source, in recent years, Tesla executives discussed with Musk the necessity of pushing to eliminate accident reporting requirements, but due to the Biden administration's firm adoption of these regulations, Tesla executives ultimately concluded that they need to wait for a change in government before applying to remove these requirements.

One source indicated that Tesla believes these regulations are unfair, as it considers itself to be better at reporting data than other Auto Manufacturers, which in turn makes it seem more responsible for the numerous collisions involving advanced driver assistance systems.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina focusing on autonomous driving, stated that Tesla collects real-time collision data that other companies do not collect, and the reported accident rate may be 'much higher' than that of other Auto Manufacturers.

Smith noted that Tesla's involvement in accidents related to driver assistance technology may also be higher because it has more vehicles on the road, and drivers use these systems more frequently than in other Autos.

Editor/lambor