- Nearly half the team regulating self-driving cars was fired in the layoff of federal workers last month.
- One terminated NHTSA employee said the firings would slow down companies trying to deploy robotaxis, including Tesla.
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk is leading efforts to slash the federal workforce with DOGE.
Job cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s DOGE will slow down the deployment of self-driving vehicles on US roads, a terminated federal worker told Business Insider.
The Office of Automation Safety, which develops regulations for autonomous vehicles, lost three of its seven employees during a Valentine’s Day cull of government workers, a person with knowledge of the cuts said.
The office is part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which regulates vehicle safety and lost about 4% of its workers in the February 14 layoffs.
“There was a massive push in the government over the past year to hire people from the actual autonomous vehicle industry to assist in regulating and understanding it. Since the government fired all recently hired employees, almost all of that private sector knowledge is now gone,” the terminated worker said.
They said the cuts had left the office “extremely understaffed” with less specialized knowledge about the autonomous vehicle sector.
BI has viewed the person’s termination letter. They did not want to be named for fear of affecting their future employment prospects.
The Washington Post previously reported on the firings. They were part of a wider push that saw thousands of probationary federal workers lose their jobs. They had typically been in their roles for less than two years.
It comes as DOGE moves forward with its efforts to cut the size of the government, despite legal opposition and concern that Musk’s efficiency efforts are targeting agencies that regulate Tesla, SpaceX, and his other companies.
Robotaxi roadblock
Companies building autonomous vehicles face a daunting patchwork of state and federal regulations.
Those wanting to deploy fully driverless vehicles that lack traditional controls such as steering wheels or pedals, such as Tesla’s Cybercab or the now-scrapped Cruise Origin vehicle, need to apply for an exemption to federal regulations.
The exemption process, which is handled by the Office of Automation Safety, can be lengthy. Cruise waited two years for permission to deploy the Origin before ultimately scrapping it.
Musk has called for an overhaul of federal autonomous vehicle regulations, telling investors last October he would “try to help make that happen” through his role at DOGE.
In November, Bloomberg reported that easing rules around self-driving cars was a major priority for the incoming Trump administration.
Tesla is gearing up to deploy fully driverless vehicles for the first time in June with a robotaxi service in Austin.
Musk’s automaker is also facing NHTSA investigations into its Full Self-Driving and Autopilot assisted driving tech, although those investigations are handled by a separate department to the Office of Automation Safety.
The job losses risk ceding the initiative on robotaxis to China, which is also heavily invested in developing autonomous vehicles, the terminated NHTSA employee said.
“When they do stuff like this, where they claim that it’s a regulatory goal to further the deployment of autonomous vehicles, but then they fire the team that’s responsible for that — that’s just going to let China get further ahead,” the individual said.
An NHTSA spokesperson said despite the layoffs, the agency’s workforce remained “considerably” larger than it was at the start of the Biden administration.
“We have retained positions critical to the mission of saving lives, preventing injuries, and reducing economic costs due to road traffic crashes. We will continue to enforce the law on all manufacturers of motor vehicles and equipment, in accordance with the Vehicle Safety Act and our data-driven, risk-based investigative process,” they told BI.
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