NHTSA Publishes Two Automated Driving System Petitions

Today the DOT’s National Highway Transportations Safety Administration (NHTSA) published two notices in the Federal Register (84 FR 10172-10182 and 84 FR 10182-10191) requesting public comments on petitions for exemptions from Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for two fully-automated-driving vehicles. The first is for an autonomous delivery vehicle from Nuro, Inc. The second is for a driverless passenger vehicle from General Motors.

Nuro Petition

The Nuro petition is for a low-speed delivery vehicle without human occupants. It requests exemption from the following FMVSS standards:

• FMVSS #500 – exemption from rear view mirror requirements;

• FMVSS #250 – exemption from windshield requirements;

• FMVSS #111 – exemption from back-up camera requirements.

The petition is limited in scope because the intended Nuro vehicle is already exempt from most FMVSS standards for a normal passenger vehicle because it is a low-speed vehicle as defined under 49 CFR 571.3.

GM Petition

The GM petition is for a passenger vehicle in limited service. It would have no provisions for an occupant to take control of the vehicle during operation. It requests exemption from the following FMVSS standards:

• FMVSS #101 – exemption from motor vehicle controls, telltales and indicators requirements;

• FMVSS #102 – exemption from transmission shift position sequence, starter interlock, and transmission braking effect requirements;

• FMVSS #108 – exemption from headlamp switch requirements;

• FMVSS #111 – exemption from rearview mirror requirements;

• FMVSS #114 – exemption from parking brake, service brake or transmission gear selection test requirements;

• FMVSS #124 – exemption from return of the throttle to the idle position requirements;

• FMVSS #126 – exemption from driver loss of directional control requirements;

• FMVSS #135 – exemption from human breaking control requirements;

• FMVSS #138 – exemption from tire pressure warning requirements;

• FMVSS #141 – exemption from gear shift selector test requirements;

• FMVSS #203, #204, and #207 – exemption from steering wheel impact test requirements;

• FMVSS #208 and #214 – exemption from drivers position crash-test requirements; and

• FMVSS #226 – exemption from airbag indicator requirements;

Public Comments

NHTSA is soliciting public comments on the petitions. Comments are required to be submitted by May 20^th, 2019. Comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # NHTSA-2019-0017, Nuro petition; and NHTSA-2019-0016, GM petition).

Commentary

An interesting component of both of these petitions is that they are for electric vehicles. That does not seem to matter much except that both petitions include reference to regulatory exemptions for ‘low emission vehicles’. Congress gave DOT authority (49 USC 30113) to ease the introduction of ‘low-emission vehicles’ by providing temporary exemptions to vehicle safety standards. Both petitions are using the argument from §30113(b)(3)(B)(iii) that “the exemption would make easier the development or field evaluation of a new motor vehicle safety feature providing a safety level at least equal to the safety level of the standard”; the new ‘motor vehicle safety feature’ being the autonomous operation system.

While avoiding the well known and documented safety problems associated with human drivers, autonomous vehicle operating systems are going to present their own problems. Both petitioners are making the point that to be able to identify (the necessary precursor to fixing) problems of their systems in real-world operations is the only way to move these systems into full-scale production. In many ways, this seems to be a valid argument, except….

The big problem missing from the discussion in either petition is the cybersecurity of their operating systems. A major reason for this is that NHTSA (and at base, Congress) have failed to explicate how they expect developers to protect these systems. With no federal regulatory requirements in existence, neither applicant is under any obligation to provide information on how (or even if) they are addressing the cybersecurity issue. This does not provide me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

The current crop of autonomous vehicles undergoing real-world testing still have the capability of human intervention to overcome software issues of malware or bad code. Granted that oversight has not been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it is there. These two proposals specifically and graphically have removed that intervention; a necessary next-step in the development of truly autonomous vehicles. The question, however, is are we ready to take that next step when we do not yet have a definition of the cybersecurity requirements for these systems, or a way to evaluate the efficacy of the cybersecurity systems put into play (whatever they are). Before we take the next step, we need to have a handle on, or at least a definition of the cybersecurity of these systems.

NHTSA Sends V2V NPRM to OMB

Yesterday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) from the DOT’s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) on vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communications. The advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) for this was published in August 2014.

The Fall 2015 Unified Agenda describes the rulemaking this way:

“V2V communications uses on-board dedicated short-range radio communication (DSRC) devices to broadcast messages about a vehicle's speed, heading, brake status, and other information to other vehicles and receive the same information from the messages, with extended range and "line-of-sight" capabilities. V2V's enhanced detection distance and ability to "see" around corners or "through" other vehicles helps V2V-equipped vehicles uniquely perceive some threats and warn their drivers accordingly. V2V technology can also be fused with vehicle-resident technologies to potentially provide greater benefits than either approach alone. V2V can augment vehicle-resident systems by acting as a complete system, extending the ability of the overall safety system to address other crash scenarios not covered by V2V communications, such as lane and road departure. Additionally, V2V communication is currently perceived to become a foundational aspect of vehicle automation.”

This rulemaking may be the first place that NHTSA attempts to address cybersecurity issues related to automobiles. Based upon questions asked in the ANPRM it certainly looks like NHTSA has been looking at this as a potential vehicle for vehicle cybersecurity regulations.

There were over 900 comments received on the ANPRM in 2014. Surprisingly, a large number of them were from private citizens objecting to V2V implementation because of perceived health issues associated with electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from the radio transmissions involved in the communications. It will be interesting to see how NHTSA deals with those comments in this NPRM.

Bills Introduced – 07-21-15

A total of 57 bills were introduced in the House and Senate yesterday. Only two of them may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 3128 Making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016, and for other purposes. Rep. Carter, John R. [R-TX-31]

S 1806 A bill to protect consumers from security and privacy threats to their motor vehicles, and for other purposes. Sen. Markey, Edward J. [D-MA]

A copy of HR 3128 is available from the GPO is available and I will be reviewing it later today for specific information on chemical security and cybersecurity. I don’t expect to find any in the actual bill, but when the Committee Report on the bill is published I will almost certainly find items of interest upon which I will be reporting.

Sen. Markey’s bill introduced yesterday had a significant boost by an article posted on Wired.com about a live hack of a vehicle on a public road way. I suspect that action on this bill (or others sure to come) may be accelerated because of this stunt.