The Department of Transportation’s Spring 2025 Regulatory Agenda: Big Announcements on Autonomous Vehicles and Automatic Emergency Braking

On September 4, 2025 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced several planned rulemakings relating to autonomous driving systems as part of the Trump Administration’s Spring 2025 regulatory agenda. The Secretary of Transportation said: “The rules of the road need to be updated to fit the realities of the 21st century. Our changes will eliminate redundant requirements and bring us closer to a single national standard that spurs innovation and prioritizes safety.” The Department of Transportation’s regulatory agenda also has dozens of other items, including two notable actions on automatic emergency braking.

These rulemakings signal the Trump Administration’s continued desire to be seen as promoting the development and deployment of autonomous technologies. At the same time, the actual rulemakings — like other recent policy initiatives relating to autonomous vehicles and deregulation generally — may prove incremental rather than revolutionary in their effect.

Updates to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to Account for Driverless Vehicles

NHTSA specifically announced that it would propose modifying four different Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) so that the standards “account for autonomous vehicles.” All four are “crash avoidance” standards — namely, safety standards designed to help vehicles avoid crashes, as opposed to “crashworthiness” standards that minimize the damage from crashes that do occur. The standards are:

• FMVSS No. 102, “Transmission shift position sequence, starter interlock and transmission braking effect.”
• FMVSS No. 103, “Windshield defrosting and defogging systems.”
• FMVSS No. 104, “Windshield wiping and washing systems.”
• FMVSS No. 108, “Lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment.”

These proposed rulemakings are likely to be similar in concept to a previous NHTSA rulemaking, finalized in 2022, that updated several crashworthiness FMVSS to “account for the designs that the agency expects, and industry confirms, could accompany certain vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems.” The 2022 crashworthiness rulemaking did not create new safety standards for autonomous operations; rather, it adjusted the language in existing standards to reflect that an autonomous vehicle may lack a human driver and such features as a designated driver’s seat and a steering wheel.

The new rulemakings may also take inspiration from a series of extensive reports issued by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, pursuant to a commission from NHTSA, titled “FMVSS Considerations for Vehicles With Automated Driving Systems.” The three volumes of those reports — released in April 2020, January 2021, and July 2025 — proposed “technical translation options” of existing FMVSS that consider “potential unnecessary/unintended regulatory barriers to innovative new vehicle designs appearing in vehicles equipped with Automated Driving Systems.” For example, Volume 2 proposed several different ways to modify FMVSS Nos. 103 and 104 so that the standards would require windshield wiping, defrosting, and defogging systems only in a vehicle that is operated by a human driver or that has manual driving controls.

Other Rulemaking Actions on Autonomous Vehicles

The Department of Transportation’s Spring 2025 agenda also includes several other notable items relevant to autonomous technology:

• NHTSA provided an update on the ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program (AV STEP), the rulemaking it proposed at the end of the Biden Administration in January 2025. AV STEP would establish a voluntary framework for the oversight of autonomous vehicle safety and create a new process for regulatory exemptions. The Spring 2025 agenda item for AV STEP indicates that the agency is evaluating comments on the proposal. NHTSA has not yet announced plans either to issue a final rule or to withdraw the rulemaking — so the fate of AV STEP is up in the air.
• NHTSA announced it will propose a rule that largely codifies the agency’s Standing General Order (SGO) 2021-01, which requires manufacturers and operators of vehicles equipped with autonomous capabilities or SAE Level 2 ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) to report crash information involving those vehicles. The proposed rule may also expand the scope of the SGO’s reporting requirements.
• NHTSA is developing a proposed rule — first announced in 2020 — to expand a program that allows vehicles to be exempted from the FMVSS if the vehicles are used for “purposes of research, investigations, demonstrations, training, competitive racing events, show, or display, but not sale or lease.” The proposed rule would allow domestic manufacturers to seek these exemptions, which are already available to imported vehicles. Even as the rule is still being drafted, NHTSA has already recently begun to grant such exemptions to domestic autonomous vehicle companies.
• The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates trucking and other commercial motor vehicles, indicated it will propose changes to the agency’s “operations, inspection, repair, and maintenance regulations” as they are applied to vehicles equipped with autonomous driving systems. This proposed rule will follow advance notices of proposed rulemaking the agency published in 2019 and in 2023.
• NHTSA indicated it plans to publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to consider “the applicability and appropriateness of safety messaging (telltales, indicators, and warnings) in new vehicle designs without conventional driver controls.” This is another revival of an item that was included in previous versions of NHTSA’s regulatory agenda, so the proposal may or may not eventually reach fruition this time.

Automatic Emergency Braking Rulemakings

In significant moves for automotive manufacturers and suppliers, NHTSA’s Spring 2025 regulatory agenda includes two rulemaking actions relating to automatic emergency braking (AEB) technology.

First, NHTSA announced that it plans to propose modifying the initial compliance date and testing requirements in FMVSS No. 127, which requires AEB systems in light vehicles. The version of the standard that was finalized in 2024 would mandate this technology in most light vehicles manufactured starting in September 2029. Several months after the final rule’s publication, NHTSA largely denied a petition for reconsideration. The final rule was also challenged in litigation. The new proposal would extend the compliance date by two additional years “so that manufacturers have more time to achieve challenging aspects of the standard.” It would also ease the performance testing requirements under the standard.

Second, NHTSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced that they will issue a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking for AEB on heavy trucks. In 2023, the two agencies jointly proposed a rule that would create a new FMVSS mandating AEB systems on heavy trucks. That proposed rule has not been finalized. Rather, the agencies now apparently plan to revise the proposed rule.

Takeaways:

• Companies and organizations involved in autonomous and AEB technology should pay close attention to these rulemakings as they progress and provide input on the best language for modifying the FMVSS. The FMVSS set strict design and performance requirements for all vehicles that operate on public roads in the United States. Once proposed rules are published, interested stakeholders should read the proposed regulatory text carefully, identifying any concerns. Where necessary, they should submit comments during the designated public comment period and, as appropriate, engage with the agency and the public about the rulemaking.
• Final rule changes to the FMVSS are not around the corner. NHTSA has yet to publish a proposed rule to modify any of the crash avoidance FMVSS to account for autonomous vehicles; all it has now are announced agenda items. Historically, NHTSA has been meticulous in issuing and modifying the FMVSS, which contain precise and highly technical language. Moreover, there is no set schedule for completion of these rulemakings and, if past is prologue, they will take time. The crashworthiness rulemaking discussed above took several years to complete, from an advance notice of proposed rulemaking in 2019 to a proposed rule in 2020 and a final rule in 2022.
• And even further down the line are regulations that set specific standards for the safety of autonomous driving systems. Proposals for new FMVSS, or some other kind of mandatory safety requirements for autonomous vehicles, have yet to materialize at the federal level. Efforts along those lines may be part of the surface transportation reauthorization legislation that is likely to be introduced in 2026.
• The rulemaking agenda characterizes the FMVSS modifications as “Deregulatory” under Executive Order 14192. This executive order (EO 14192) provides that “whenever an executive department or agency … publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it shall identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed,” and that “any new incremental costs associated with new regulations shall … be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least 10 prior regulations.” To the extent these proposed rulemakings are considered to constitute the “repeal” of existing regulations or to reduce costs, they may pave the way for new regulations.

This post is as of the posting date stated above. Sidley Austin LLP assumes no duty to update this post or post about any subsequent developments having a bearing on this post.