Today, California’s Department of motor vehicles opened up public comment on proposed regulations that would allow car manufacturers to test, and eventually sell, self-driving cars that don’t require a backup driver.
Under the current rules, autonomous vehicles are required to have manual controls and a driver to take who can take the wheel in an emergency. Under the proposed regulations, car-makers wouldn’t have to include those controls and the vehicles could be operated without a human driver.
California plans to open up testing on public roads by the end of the year, state officials told Reuters, which originally reported the news.
BMW, Tesla, Alphabet’s Waymo, and Nvidia are among the 27 companies authorized to test driverless, autonomous vehicles on California’s roads.
California has led the nation in developing state regulations for testing self-driving cars so the latest move could be a sign of things to come outside the Golden State. Washington state, meanwhile, is still trying to figure out how to regulate the fast-approaching technology.
