Rule change now allows delivery of self-driving vehicles without steering wheel or pedals

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has officially changed a long-standing rule that is now paving the way for automakers to offer self-driving vehicles without a steering wheel or pedals.

Safety regulations have forced automakers to deliver every passenger vehicle with a number of safety features – including a steering wheel and pedals – in order to make them legal on the road. This sounds like a simple and clear regulation, but with the advent of driverless vehicles it is becoming less and less.

A steering column extending into the passenger compartment is taking up space, and is not really needed if the vehicle can drive itself.

With more and more driverless transportation services being approved on U.S. roads, including Waymo in Arizona and California, and Cruise in California, those rules have necessitated some changes.

Several companies, including GM and Tesla, have made it clear that they want to produce vehicles without steering wheels, and now, they are going to be able to do it in the US.

The NHTSA has officially changed the rule (via Reuters):

US regulators issued final rules on Thursday, eliminating the need for automated automakers to equip fully autonomous vehicles with manual driving controls to meet crash standards.

This rule applies to vehicles that are designed for self-driving from above ground.

This should enable Cruise and Waymo to create new vehicles better designed to be driverless, rather than retrofitting vehicles like the Bolt EV, Jaguar I-Pace, and Pacifica minivans.

In 2018, GM unveiled the Bolt EV without a steering wheel, which they were expected to use with Cruise Automation’s technology.

Tesla also unveiled a Model 3 without a steering wheel in 2019, but the company’s approach to self-driving could mean we won’t see it on the road for some time.

Cruise and Waymo have self-driving services approved for commercial operation in certain geographic areas of cities, while Tesla is taking a broader approach and aims to provide a self-driving system that will take you almost anywhere in the world. May go. It also claims that all of its vehicles being delivered today have all the hardware needed to achieve this with future software updates.

Meanwhile, those vehicles are driven by human drivers – or at least supervised – who require a steering wheel and pedals.

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