The TL;DR in one quote:
Job cuts at the US traffic safety regulator instigated by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency disproportionately hit staff assessing self-driving risks, hampering oversight of technology on which the world’s richest man has staked the future of Tesla.
An interesting quote from a Tesla manager:
“Letting Doge fire those in the autonomous division is sheer madness—we should be lobbying to add people to NHTSA,” said one manager at Tesla. They “need to be developing a national framework for AVs, otherwise Tesla doesn’t have a prayer for scale in FSD or robotaxis.”
The real reason elon is doing this…
no conflict of interest, none at all
Tbh this is really frustrating. As many car crashes I ran in my 15 years in EMS, NHTSA has probably saved more lives in the last twenty years than the Dept of Public Health, especially once you consider how for much of America, there really is no alternative to driving.
Plot twist: NHTSA are the only people that approve new designs, so Tesla can’t sell any more cars.
Well we can dream.
I think this is unironically what they are going for everywhere: delegating regulation to industry, as is the case to some extent in aviation. If they get their way, they won’t need approval from the NHTSA or any other agency, because they will self-approve and likely even shape regulation themselves.
Boeing (just one example) has been pushing for lower or self regulation for a while.
That was part of what led to the 737-MAX issue:
Airlines concerned for safety will be moving away from Boeing if the deregulation continues.
The libertarian BS is going to set America back a century - in many respects.
Great, now they can rear-end motorcycle riders even more often
It’s almost as if the fascist apartheid baby has an agenda behind all of this.
This would be REALLY CORRUPT if Elon was the President! FORTUNATELY that’s NOT the Case! They would NEVER let an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT like HIM to do that!
I won’t buy any American car newer than 2024.
Neither will the rest of the world, if their cars fail the safety requirements in all the other countries.
Do the cars not have to be certified? It seems to me that fewer employees just means longer delays for certifications, not easier certifications
The NHTSA doesn’t actually certify anything.
They write the standards that vehicles and products must follow, but it’s up to the manufacturers to certify themselves as being compliant.
This explains how the cyber trucks, with no third party testing, are considered road legal in the US and basically no other country.
So Elon is not firing regulators that will deny his cars a certification, he’s firing regulators that decide what the requirements will be.
Thats so much worse.
Source for anyone interested. It’s a reply to a man wanting to import air bags, but the letter does give a nice overview of the laws.
The Cybertruck doesn’t violate any US laws, there’s nothing to disallow it, and independent testing gave it 5 star saftey rating.
And while OEMs do self certify, they get spot checked to ensure compliance. There’s too many new vehicles and variants for the NHSTA/EPA etc. to ever check every single one in detail.
Edit: and if you really wanna get into it, most of the other OEMs everyone wants to love actually put defeat devices for said spot checking to lie and kill us sooner with bad air for $$$
I’d love to see self certification go away entirely. They do the same thing with motorcycle helmets.
NHTSA does not approve helmets, or any other motor vehicle equipment, instead relying on a self-certification process. However, we conduct tests on some helmets to make sure they meet our standard.
They release reports about those checks and a guy online aggregates them and they have a 43.9% failure rate as of 2023. With helmets we can just grab something with the DOT rating and one of the other ratings that aren’t self certified.
What is DOGE again ? (I was living under a rock)
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)[b] is an initiative of the second Trump administration tasked with cutting federal spending which it characterizes as “waste, fraud, and abuse”.[8] It emerged from discussions between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and was established by executive order on January 20, 2025. DOGE’s actions have included accessing government data systems; organizing mass layoffs of federal workers; and cutting climate change initiatives, scientific research, and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Efficiency
Online banker man turned electric car salesman bought that website you used to use to tell your friends about what the dentist’s waiting room was like or whatever (or yell at celebrities I guess) and used it to help that guy who fired people on tv become president. In return banker car man gets put in charge of shiny new government agency and given the power to fire basically whatever government employees he wants, also his private security detail is deputized by the US Marshals Service, also he has your social security number, probably
I think that should about cover it unless someone else wants to add more detail. But I think I was very thorough.
You forgot about the ketamine and the blown apart dick
He is also addicted to ketamine, yes. I hadn’t heard about the blown apart dick. Clearly I have also been living under a rock.
May any woman who hasn’t seen his dick raise their hand please?
He should prove me wrong by showing the world.
Insecurity is a pox on this world
Always has been!!
I do not see a conflict of interest. 🙈
FFS, someone end this already
Be car reliant nation Remove car safety
Hilarious
Ahh, the sole reason I can stomach the way auto prices have inflated over the past 20 years.
Elon rather keep it as profit. Imagine how money he’ll save by not have to setup a lifesaving pyrotechnics ballet in every car.
To be completely fair the American government currently does this with inflation, among other things. Actually inflationary item? Whoops we removed it from the calculation. All good here, boss. Sweeping something you don’t want to account for “under the rug” is practically normalized in this government. It isn’t right- obviously… but this isn’t really shocking either.
The elephant? Where? In this room?! We don’t talk about that.
In case you need another reason not to buy a Tesla.
In a few years most of the world probably won’t even be able to. It took Chinese cars decades to come to the worldwide and especially the EU market because nobody in China was developing and manufacturing cars that would pass western safety regulations.
If the only way for Tesla to stay competitive in the US is by loosening the US regulations, they’ll end up with an ecosystem that can only be sold and used in the US. For example, how the Cybertruck is entirely unroadworthy in the EU.
I’m just waiting for the day EU declares that self-driving systems need to be able to detect a wall, even if there is a picture of an open road on it, and stop. It would mean Tesla wouldn’t be able to pass it due to Musk insisting on only using cameras and removing all other sensors.
Pretty much this. The US will now end up with an automotive ecosystem (including fun things like ambulances, firetrucks, buses, etc) where everything is built as cheaply and dangerously as possibly profitable (see: Pinto et al). Sure, the autos we build here aren’t going to be able to be sold anywhere with a functioning regulatory body, but that’s OK because we managed to save $20 on each car we build by not having to include pesky things like airbags or a steering column that won’t impale you in a crash or a body that won’t telescope into you and crush you.
