How The Government Is Pressuring Automakers Into Building Safer Cars For Drivers And Pedestrians

The United States introduced the idea of a “Five Star” crash rating in 1979 after Americans started getting sick of having their giant cars crushed like the first can of Lone Star on Saturday morning. The idea wasn’t to ban cars from being sold, it was to browbeat automakers into doing a better job of protecting passengers by placing a score on the window of every new car for sale.

These tests are getting a big upgrade and, while the actual crash-testing portion isn’t changing, automakers will now be required to add more safety systems in order to make the window sticker really shine. It’s a Morning Dump all about safety today and, while we’re focused on the near term, the Trump Administration is focused on safety in the longer term via autonomous cars. You know what’s maybe safer? A car driven by a human, but that human has a gun; there is a new ride-share service offering exactly that.

The Trump Administration hasn’t even begun and already there’s a debate over whether or not ending the EV tax credits is a good idea and it sounds like a lot of people want to keep them. Perhaps the safest bet of all is that no one will ever agree on anything.

Everyone Wants Five Stars

If you’ve ever seen a car commercial, listened to a radio spot for a car, or just been alive in the last 40 years then the idea of a car having a “five-star crash-test rating” isn’t going to surprise you. It’s likely the automaker is referring to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), a crash-test standard going back to the 1970s.

It’s a soft power thing and now, in spite of complaints from some circles, NHTSA is updating its testing for 2026 model year cars to include more crash avoidance features. Here’s what NHTSA says is changing:

• The addition of four advanced driver assistance technologies that will enhance crash-avoidance safety: pedestrian automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assist, blind spot warning and blind spot intervention.
• Updated and strengthened testing procedures and performance criteria for advanced driver assistance technologies that are already included in NCAP, such as automatic emergency braking.
• The addition of a crashworthiness pedestrian protection program to evaluate the ability of a vehicle’s front end to mitigate pedestrian injuries and fatalities in vehicle-to-pedestrian impacts.
• Midterm and long-term roadmaps to accommodate future updates amid ongoing research and technological advancements in vehicle safety, including crash avoidance and crashworthiness improvements to protect bicyclists and motorcyclists and an updated rating system.

This joins adding automotive emergency braking as a priority on the list of ways the federal government is trying to make cars safer. How is this actually going to work?

From the AP:

The agency said that the five-star crash test ratings, which most vehicles now get, would not change under the new system. But consumers would also see green check marks if vehicles they’re shopping for have the safety features and can be assured that they meet standards set by the government, Buttigieg said.

Early on, the features will get a pass or fail grade, but later will get scores so buyers can compare vehicles, he said.

I guess you get a “pass” if you have the feature and a “fail” if you don’t?

Trump Administration Wants To Make Robocars Great Again

While incoming President Trump’s team wants to gut the EV tax credit (more on that later), which is maybe long-term good for Tesla, it also wants to make it easier to build driverless cars, which… is also good for Tesla. [Ed Note: And if done right, for everyone else on the road. That’s a big if, though. -DT].

Here’s Bloomberg explaining what might happen:

Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have told advisers they plan to make a federal framework for self-driving vehicles one of the Transportation Department’s priorities, according to people familiar with the matter.

If new rules enable wider deployment of cars without human controls, it will directly benefit Elon Musk, the Tesla Inc. chief executive officer and Trump mega-donor who’s become a powerful fixture in the president-elect’s inner circle. He’s bet the future of the EV maker on self-driving technology and artificial intelligence.

Tesla’s stock rose more than 7% shortly after the market open Monday, extending their 28% advance since election day. Shares of Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., which could face competition from Musk’s long-planned robotaxi network, each fell more than 6% in intraday trading.

I have some mixed feelings about this.

Regulations and hurdles in the way of driverless cars are quite onerous, with GM trying and failing to get approval for two years. A car without a steering wheel or controls is considered SAE Level 5 autonomous driving and it’s not clear that anyone is great at it yet, but it’s better than the confusing garbage that is Level 3 partial autonomous driving. Given how distracted everyone is, imperfect technology might be better than extremely imperfect drivers right now.

Plus, there are already cars driving around without drivers, so who cares if it has a steering wheel?

The other side of me worries that upscaling these cars from the limited miles they have now into something broader is going to quickly and terrifyingly help us discover all the edge cases. I also don’t fully trust that Tesla’s camera-based system is going to work.

While the next administration can take a lot of steps to make autonomous cars easier to deploy, it’ll likely take an act of Congress to make them truly mainstream. It’s also here that I should mention that President-elect Trump has also selected former Rep. Sean Duffy as Secretary of Transportation. This is one of President Trump’s more mainstream picks and he also has experience, having appeared on MTV’s Road Rules: All Stars. This is not a joke.

It’s Like Uber, But With Armed Drivers

There’s apparently a viral rideshare service, called BlackWolf, that will allow you to get a driver who has been in law enforcement and at the minimum has an active security license.

According to KVUE, this service will soon be coming to Texas and allow you to specify a driver that’s armed:

BlackWolf started in Atlanta in 2023 and quickly grew a following on social media, leading to its rapid expansion. Now the rideshare service operates in 11 cities across three states, with hopes of coming to Texas in early 2025.

Those interested in driving for BlackWolf can apply under the “drive” section of BlackWolf’s website. Drivers will then undergo a thorough screening to make sure they qualify.

BlackWolf also has a list of eligible vehicles and standards for their “BlackWolf Premium” and “BlackWolf Comfort” tiers.

Growing up in Texas I remember that there was also a service where you could get a ride with an armed driver… it was called getting in literally any car.

Utilities Want To Keep The EV Tax Credit

It seems like there are a lot of groups lining up to save the $7,500 EV tax credit, which is high on the list of things that President Trump wants to end when he’s in office. If you’ve kept up with the saga of David’s $1,000 Nissan Leaf it won’t surprise to you to learn that power utilities are companies hoping to maintain the credit.

After years of stagnant growth, EVs have the potential to increase demand.

Per Reuters:

The U.S. utility industry wants the incoming Trump administration and Republican-led Congress to preserve clean energy and EV tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, Pedro Pizarro, the CEO of utility Edison International said on Saturday.

The 2022 IRA contains hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for clean energy and is billed as outgoing President Joe Biden’s signature law to combat climate change. President-elect Donald Trump, a climate skeptic, has vowed to rescind it, something that would require support of Congress.

Pizarro, who until recently chaired the board of industry trade group Edison Electric Institute, said the lobby group’s members have been making the case with the Trump transition team and Republican members of Congress that preserving the IRA is good for businesses and consumers alike.

Utilities have money to spend so it’ll be interesting to see how successful they are in trying to pick up the 2-3 Republican members of the U.S. House they’ll need to stall any changes.

What I’m Listening To This Morning

Every week, at least once a week, I have to listen to “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin, and now so do you.

The Big Question

Should we just skip straight to Level 5 autonomous cars?