The department of motor vehicles’ revised regulations, which will face an open hearing this month, allow the public to access driverless cars

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

California’s department of motor vehicles said late on Friday the most advanced self-driving cars will no longer be required to have a licensed driver, if federal officials deem them safe enough.

The regulator released a revision of draft regulations that opened a pathway for the public to access self-driving cars, prototypes of which automakers and tech companies are testing.

The redrafted regulations will be the subject of a public hearing on 19 October, in Sacramento.



The California DMV has been wrestling for several years with how to oversee the emerging technology. In December, the agency released an initial draft of self-driving car regulations that required a licensed driver in any self-driving vehicle.

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The automotive and tech industries reacted with great disappointment, as the ultimate vision of many companies is a car with no steering wheel or pedals. That approach is based on the argument that humans are not very good at driving, and cannot be relied on as a back-up to a car that typically drives itself.

The DMV’s new document coincides with the release last week of a 112-page federal proposal under which any self-driving car should pass a 15-point safety assessment before the public can use it.

Among other things, the safety assessment asks automakers to document how the car detects and avoids objects and pedestrians; how hardened it is against cyber-attacks; and how its back-up systems will cope should the software fail.

In incorporating the federal approach, California dropped a proposal that a third-party company certify the safety of self-driving cars.

The new draft regulations released on Friday include several new provisions. Among them is wording that would prohibit advertising vehicles with lower levels of automation – such as Tesla Motors’ Autopilot, which on divided highways can keep a car in its lane, brake and accelerate on the understanding that a person is paying attention all the time – from being advertised as “autonomous” or “self-driving”.

The company that stands to gain the most from the state’s embrace of cars without a wheel or pedals is Alphabet, where the Google self-driving car project envisions cars that allow no human control other than a start and emergency stop button.

A spokesman for the Google self-driving car project did not have a comment on the changes to the proposed regulations.