Feds want to make brake pedals optional in AVs

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing eliminating the requirement for brake pedals in cars designed to be fully self-driving, marking a key milestone for the autonomous vehicle industry.

As Ece Yildirim explains in an article for Gizmodo, the agency's new AV Framework is designed to reduce barriers to AV adoption. "Under the current rules, all cars, no matter how autonomous they are designed to be, require hand or foot-operated manual brake controls. Autonomous vehicle makers can apply for an exemption from the restrictions, but each approved exemption would allow them to sell no more than 2,500 vehicles per year." If the rule change is approved, AVs would still have to meet stopping distance performance criteria but would not have to include a manual brake.

The change would be advantageous to carmakers like Tesla, who would no longer be constrained on how many vehicles without brake pedals, such as its Cybercab, that it could produce and sell. Amazon's Zoox robotaxi company asked the government for an exemption to operate vehicles without brake pedals or steering wheels, which has not been approved.