On September 20, 2016 NHTSA released its long awaited guidelines on autonomous vehicle technology. As part of aiding regulation NHTSA will streamline its review process and has committed to issuing interpretations related to highly automated vehicles (HAVs) in 60 days, and ruling on simple HAV-related exemptions in six months.

Within the guidance NHTSA has outlined the framework for vehicle performance and requested that manufacturers and other entities voluntarily provide reports regarding how this framework has been followed. For NHTSA to consider Rulemaking with regards to HAVs, they must be able to support their decisions with data collected from the industry.

As part of our vision, we want to offer unique and efficient solutions to our clients. We can assist companies looking to enter the autonomous market by helping them develop their safety metrics and properly report data to NHTSA. We are also capable of working with smaller city or state governments to guide them in creating regulations that will not hinder the technology while having the flexibility to be adopted by other neighboring cities and states.

NHTSA has posted the Policy in the Federal docket, under NHTSA-2016-0090 with the comment period ending on November 22, 2016.