Robotics law that could ban Tesla

For more than a decade, one question has loomed over the race to build self-driving vehicles: Are cameras alone enough to safely replace human drivers, or do self-driving cars really need additional overlapping sensors like lidar and radar to reliably navigate the world? Tesla has bet billions of dollars that artificial intelligence and cameras are enough. Almost every other major developer of self-driving cars has gone in the opposite direction.

Until now, this argument has been left largely to executives and engineers. New Jersey lawmakers are trying to settle it in state law.

A invoice Expected to be voted on later this year, it will require companies seeking to operate fully autonomous vehicles in New Jersey to use cameras in addition to two other sensor technologies, most commonly lidar and radar. If enacted, New Jersey would be the first state to codify such a mandate for the devices into law, moving forward with a nearly identical proposal currently awaiting action in neighboring states. New York. The measure would also effectively prevent Tesla’s Robotaxi camera system from operating in New Jersey unless the company changes its hardware.

“This is not anti-Tesla,” said Democratic state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, the bill’s lead sponsor. Edge. “I’m pro-safety in New Jersey.”

Zwicker, a physicist who works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (New Jersey does not restrict lawmakers from outside employment), said that after taking a Waymo robotaxi in Phoenix, he became convinced that self-driving vehicles could transform transportation.

“I was amazed at how quickly I got used to it,” he said.

He believes that this technology could significantly expand mobility, reduce traffic deaths, and make transportation more accessible. But he believes the technology should be deployed cautiously in the nation’s most populated state.

“At this point, I don’t think there’s enough evidence that a single sensor with software can handle situations that humans can handle,” Zwicker said. “Can we get there? Maybe. But we’re not there yet.”

The proposal would create a three-year pilot program governing the testing and deployment of fully autonomous vehicles in New Jersey. Companies will have to use multiple sensor technologies, report certain incidents, and obtain state authorization before fully operating commercial driverless services. They will also have to complete at least 50,000 miles of supervised testing in New Jersey without a major accident before the human safety driver can be removed.

While states’ battles over self-driving vehicles have largely focused on safety performance, oversight, and the potential for job losses, New Jersey is trying to do something different: legislate how the vehicles themselves are built.

The sensor requirement is by far the most important provision in the bill and will have ramifications beyond Tesla. Elon Musk has long argued that cameras combined with increasingly capable artificial intelligence are the best and most cost-effective way to power self-driving vehicles. Humans navigate the world using vision alone, so sufficiently advanced AI should eventually be able to do the same, Musk said. Eliminating lidar and radar also dramatically lowers hardware costs, making it easier to build robotaxis cheaply enough to deploy on a large scale.

Musk has argued that adding more sensors could reduce safety by forcing software to reconcile conflicting information.

“LiDAR and radar reduce safety because of sensor competition. If lidar/radars disagree with cameras, who wins?” he books On X last year. “We’ve turned off radars in Tesla vehicles to increase safety. Front cameras.”

Most of the rest of the self-driving car industry disagrees. Companies including Waymo and Zoox are combining cameras, sensors and radar, arguing that each sensor technology has different strengths and weaknesses. The cameras capture rich visual detail, allowing vehicles to recognize colours, traffic signals, lane markings and pedestrians, but may struggle in bad weather, darkness or glare. Radar works best in rain and fog and excels at measuring the distance and relative speed of nearby objects. A lidar system uses lasers to create detailed 3D maps of the vehicle’s surroundings, making it particularly effective at determining the shape and distance of nearby objects.

Instead of relying on a single sensor, these companies combine the strengths of all three, arguing that redundancy makes autonomous driving safer. Only camera systems may eventually become capable enough for fully autonomous driving, said Philip Koopman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and an autonomous vehicle safety expert. But he doesn’t believe they are today.

As Koopman puts it: “Eyeballs are better than cameras for many reasons,” and “human brains are fundamentally stronger than AI because we understand.” While there are situations where Koopman said the camera just works well — clear weather, proper lighting, less complicated methods — he believes it’s not ready for widespread use by consumers.

“For 24/7 operation across the majority of public roads in New Jersey today, it takes lidar,” he said. “It’s quite clear that today’s camera-only technology is not up to the challenge.”

Koopman supports New Jersey’s proposal but said he prefers stronger safeguards, such as requiring traditional driving controls like steering wheels and pedals so first responders can move disabled vehicles (hence no e-taxis, which Don’t have either), and limits on the number of self-driving vehicles that can be on the road during a test flight (a potential requirement that Zwicker said he was considering).

“The difference between 100 cars and 10,000 cars is night and day,” Koopman said. When the scale is small, “there aren’t enough cars for a lot of weird things to happen to them.” He pointed to Waymo, which now operates more than 3,500 commercial robotaxis 11 US metro areas.

“They’ve never had problems with them Flood waters and School buses “Not because they can get rid of flood water and school buses,” Koopman said, “but with 100 cars, that doesn’t happen very often.”

Despite the hype, Tesla currently only has a handful of unattended robotaxis on the road, most of them in Texas, according to data from Robotaxi Tracker, suggestion It wasn’t easy to scale up the camera-only approach as Musk had previously promised. Last year is anticipation Tesla will have hundreds of thousands of fully self-driving Tesla vehicles operating by the end of 2026. (Tesla did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)

Many provisions of the bill reflect recommendations from Save usa non-profit organization advocating for stricter regulation of self-driving vehicles. Physicist and SAVE-US national campaign director Chua Sanchez said the group formed because Congress failed to set national rules while self-driving car companies expanded into states with wildly different levels of oversight.

“California has the best safety systems in the country,” he said. “Texas, Arizona and Georgia have almost no government oversight.”

Among the organization’s priorities is the need for redundant sensor systems.

“We have no problem with Tesla as a company,” Sanchez said. “We have a problem with camera-only self-driving vehicles.”

Almost every major stakeholder has sought changes to the bill. Waymo successfully pushed to remove the requirement that safety drivers remain in vehicles for the duration of the test ride, and Uber argued that the state should continue to require human drivers for most trips, according to Zwicker.

Tesla is lobbying against the legislation in New Jersey, according to Zwicker, who said company representatives have met with lawmakers to argue that advances in artificial intelligence make additional types of sensors unnecessary. Although the technology is improving, I’m not yet convinced they’re ready to take off, Zwicker said.

The debate extended beyond the House of Representatives.

“As written, the legislation imposes restrictions that are too stringent for Tesla’s autonomous vehicle technology to operate legally in New Jersey,” Tesla said in a letter. Official letter Tesla owners in New Jersey are encouraged to contact their legislators. “Instead of prioritizing real safety and performance outcomes, the bill specifically bans Tesla from the New Jersey market.”

Zwicker said his office received nearly 4,000 emails within one day. “The letters were not about the details of the bill,” he said. “It was that Zwicker was trying to remove your autopilot.”

Zwicker rejects this characterization. The legislation only applies to fully autonomous vehicles operating under the proposed government pilot program, not driver-assistance systems that require a licensed human driver to remain behind the wheel.

The battle in New Jersey reflects a broader vacuum in regulation of self-driving vehicles. Congress has debated national legislation on autonomous vehicles for years without passing a comprehensive framework, leaving states to develop their own rules as commercial robotics services expand. Robotaxi services already operate in states including California, Texas, Arizona and Georgia under significantly different regulatory regimes. Although California requires extensive testing permits and public reporting, it doesn’t specify what technology autonomous vehicles will need to get there. Texas has taken a much lighter approach, which allows automakers Self-certification That their self-driving cars are ready for the road.

The New Jersey bill raises the possibility that autonomous vehicle technology there will differ from that in other states. Zwicker says that’s not his concern.

“The technology doesn’t exist in the Northeast at all,” he said. “The goal is to start now, do it safely, and build public confidence.”

Sanchez sees sensor requirements as a logical safeguard rather than a restriction on innovation.

“There are some really great people working at Tesla trying to make the autonomous camera just work,” he said. “But they’re trying to do it with one arm tied behind their back.”