By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will hold a national autonomous vehicle safety forum on Tuesday that will include the CEOs of self-driving companies Waymo, Zoox and Aurora.
The Trump administration is looking for ways to speed up deployment of robotaxis and address regulatory barriers, while also scrutinizing safety issues. The meeting will include a discussion with Alphabet-unit co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, Amazon’s Zoox CEO Aicha Evans and Aurora CEO Chris Urmson.
NHTSA is reviewing potential actions including “future guidance on the safe domestic development, testing, and deployment” of self-driving vehicles. The day-long session will also review the use of remote assistance in robotaxis and how regulators should assess robotaxi performance versus human-driven vehicles.
NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said last week that the agency wants to support innovation in self-driving vehicles because of the potential benefits to reducing crashes and extending mobility to some older Americans and people with disabilities.
“We are taking a measured approach — removing unnecessary, unintended barriers to this technology while maintaining strict safety oversight,” Morrison said.
But the agency has opened a number of investigations into issues with robotaxis. “The technology is not perfect,” Morrison said. “We are not going to be shy when we see something that we believe presents a risk to the public.”
NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board are both investigating Waymo robotaxis illegally passing stopped school buses.
Congress is considering legislation that aims to make it easier to deploy autonomous vehicles without human controls. As robotaxi testing has expanded, lawmakers have been divided for years about whether to pass legislation to address deployment hurdles.
The agency said the United States “is at an inflection point for automated mobility. The industry has progressed beyond the era of isolated testing, development, and pilot programs into a reality where robotaxis and commercial vehicles are now navigating American roadways daily.”
Waymo is operating robotaxi trips in locations across the United States including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Miami and has completed 200 million fully autonomous miles on public roads and provided 400,000 weekly rides. In January, Tesla started robotaxi rides in Austin without safety monitors.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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