NHTSA is proposing cyan-colored marker lamps “to obviously and constantly sign to regulation enforcement and different street customers when an automatic driving system is working the car.” Why cyan? The auto business already makes use of purple, amber, white, and flashing blue/purple lights for things like brakes, flip indicators, headlights, and emergency automobiles. Cyan may theoretically fill the visible hole with out complicated street customers.
And there’s some precedent, too. Mercedes-Benz acquired state-level approval for turquoise lights on its Stage 3 Drive Pilot vehicles — despite the fact that the automaker has since scrapped the thought in favor of a Stage 2++ system. However, NHTSA needs to set a nationwide customary that robotaxi operators like Waymo, Nuro, and Zoox, in addition to automakers like GM and Mercedes, can undertake uniformly.
Beneath the proposed rule, cyan marker lights could be non-obligatory for producers. Nonetheless, by creating official federal requirements for his or her shade, brightness, and site, NHTSA needs to make it possible for any automaker who chooses so as to add them makes use of a constant, authorized setup as an alternative of a complicated combine of various colours and indicators.
NHTSA can also be proposing to eliminate some lighting necessities that wouldn’t make sense for a car with no human driver. Present guidelines demand bodily hazard switches, handbook beam shifters, and switch levers contained in the automobiles. The company is proposing to take away these necessities, whereas additionally updating the 12.8-volt testing customary so automakers can construct round trendy LED architectures with out leaping by administrative hoops. And NHTSA is contemplating eliminating necessities dictating whether or not high-beam lights sit above or beneath low-beam lights.
This replace is a part of the broader administrative push by the Division of Transportation to streamline AV deployment. The federal government needs to make it simpler for automakers to construct vehicles with out conventional controls, like steering wheel and pedals, which can be meant for automobiles which can be operated by human drivers.
That stated, regulators are additionally nonetheless implementing the principles as they’re written. Final month, NHTSA opened an audit question into the Tesla Cybercab “to look at the method and technical information on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and associated points.” At problem is the absence of sure design options akin to sideview mirrors, pedals, and steering wheel — all of that are required underneath FMVSS.