Federal regulators give greenlight to driverless vehicles without steering wheels

The federal government this week gave the greenlight for the auto industry to begin rolling out truly driverless cars, ones that will lack steering wheels but which federal regulators insisted must abide by the same safety regulations as other cars.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration said in a ruling on Thursday that it was “appropriate to finalize this action at this time in anticipation of emerging [Automated Driving System] vehicle designs that NHTSA has seen in prototype form.”

Companies will now be permitted to begin building and rolling out such vehicles. General Motors has already requested permission from the agency to deploy its “Cruise Origin,” what the company describes as an “all seeing, smart thinking, fast acting, always learning” vehicle. 

Nominally driverless vehicles already exist in the U.S., though they possess traditional manual controls that drivers can utilize in the event of an emergency.