Tesla may stop reporting fatal FSD accidents as Musk's DOGE team preps to drop fed safety rules

The federal autonomous vehicle regulation framework may indeed be rewritten in Tesla's favor, if a new report about the legislative efforts of Trump's transition team pans out.

At Tesla's last quarterly results press conference, Elon Musk said that a newly formed Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will pave the way for the launch of its driverless Robotaxi by creating a regulatory framework governing autonomous vehicles at the federal level.

This will benefit all automakers, not just Tesla, he argued, but failed to mention that the legislative efforts may also involve cutting down on existing regulations that directly affect Tesla's accountability as one of the largest providers of automotive driver-assist software.

With GM throwing in the towel on its Cruise autonomous vehicle undertaking, and Waymo operating in georestricted manner, Tesla's FSD software is now about the only game in town when it comes to large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles like its Robotaxi two-seater.

Accordingly, part of Trump's transition team responsible for transportation legislation has prepared a deregulation move that aligns with DOGE's credo of removing government overreach. Instead of crafting autonomous vehicle regulations on a federal level, however, it is aiming to remove the reporting safeguards that the NHTSA demands from companies that provide driver-assist systems like Tesla's FSD.

If Trump's administration legislates the transition team's recommendations, Tesla will no longer have to comply with the NHTSA's requirement to report every accident where its FSD or Autopilot software has been on at least 30 seconds before the crash. As the largest provider of such features, Tesla has been involved in the vast majority of fatal accidents that fit the profile of this NHTSA requirement.

The NHTSA has used this data to issue fines and recalls asking for clearer labelling of the dangers of driver-assist systems, contrary to Tesla's rosy language used in FSD or Autopilot marketing descriptions.

As Trump's team is calling for more liberalization around self-driving cars, the NHTSA immediately reacted with a statement saying that the crash reporting requirements have been pivotal to gauge and improve the safety of driver-assist systems, so it remains to be seen if that particular DOGE deregulation will play out.

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