ROME – The first services based on autonomous driving begin to take shape in the United States. General Motors and Ford Motor Company have in fact decided to ask the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the US automotive safety regulatory authority, for a series of authorizations to test a limited number of self-driving vehicles without human controls such as steering wheels and pedals. brakes. The NHTSA, as is the procedure in these cases, published the petitions of the companies and submitted them for public comment for thirty days. At the end of the period, before granting any authorizations, the experts of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will assess whether the requests are relevant to a subsequent public interest. Both General Motors and Ford have said they want to use up to 2,500 vehicles per year (the maximum allowed by US law), for ride sharing and delivery services, while neither carmaker intends to seek approval to sell these. self-driving vehicles to consumers. GM and its self-driving technology unit Cruise announced in February that they had petitioned the NHTSA for permission to use self-driving vehicles without a steering wheel, mirrors, turn signals or wipers.
Ford’s petition for the use of a self-driving vehicle for package delivery and ride-hailing instead, was filed in July 2021 but had not yet been disclosed until publication by the regulator. GM wants to use the Origin, a vehicle with sliding doors and without a steering wheel which, before the self-driving journey begins, will require all passengers to fasten their seat belts. A Ford spokesperson said “the petition is an important step to help create a regulatory path that allows autonomous technologies to mature over time, eliminating controls and displays that are only useful to human drivers.” It should be noted that Ford has recently successfully experimented with a pilot project of autonomous delivery of fresh food, delivered at home to the elderly in the southwest area of Detroit. Now all that remains is to await the judgment of the NHTSA, whose director Steven Cliff said the agency “will carefully examine each petition to ensure that safety is a priority and to include considerations on access for people with disabilities, equity and ‘environment”.