Automakers, Lyft urge feds to clear path for self-driving
Automakers came to Congress on Tuesday seeking relief from a growing patchwork of state laws surrounding selfdriving cars.
Executives from automakers Toyota, General Motors and Volvo and an executive at ride-hailing app Lyft urged lawmakers to use their constitutional authority to pre-empt state laws on selfdriving cars.
In testimony before a House subcommittee, Lyft government relations vice president Joseph Okpaku said a thicket of varying regulations in states, cities and counties threatens to hold back innovation. Legislators in more than 20 states have proposed nearly 60 bills to regulate autonomous vehicles since Jan. 1, Okpaku said.
Enacted laws range from a restrictive framework in California, which has sparred with businesses over self-driving car tests, to a fairly wide-open environment in Michigan.
The answer, says Michael Ableson, a General Motors vice president, is for Congress to grant authority to the Transportation secretary “to grant specific exemptions for highly automated vehicle development.”
GM is currently testing 50 selfdriving Chevrolet Bolt sedans in states that include California and Michigan and plans to roll them out first in Lyft fleets.
Among the vexing issues for lawmakers is how regulations can keep pace with self-driving vehicles. At present, motorists can buy cars that are, at best, partially self-driving. Automakers say that within five years, they could have models that are fully self-driving.
Members of the congressional subcommittee largely expressed bipartisan support for the development of autonomous vehicles, though there was little indication of whether they were inclined to adopt uniform legislation on selfdriving cars.
It’s “exciting on a personal lev- el,” said Rep. Gregg Harper, RMiss., who said his “special needs” son could benefit from access to self-driving cars.
“The possibilities are so good here for people in the disability community.”
Auto executives expressed concern that well-intentioned efforts to protect consumers will undermine development.
One of the key challenges is “how safe is safe enough” to allow self-driving cars on the road, Toyota Research Institute CEO Gill Pratt testified.
Pratt said it’s unlikely people would accept a significant number of deaths attributable to autonomous vehicles.
“Society tolerates a significant amount of human error on our roads. We are, after all, only human,” he testified. “Humans show nearly zero tolerance for injuries or deaths caused by flaws in a machine.”
Lawmakers said there needs to be a balance between safety and technological development.
“Nobody wants to let unsafe technologies on the road, but we also don’t want to prevent vehicles that improve safety from reaching consumers easier,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. But Dingell said crash fatalities would be a “public health epidemic” if it were any other industry.
A thicket of regulations in states, cities and counties threatens to hold back innovation, a Lyft executive testified before a House panel Tuesday.