Regulatory Chill May Pivot Connected Vehicle Tech’s Course

Bloomberg BNA discusses Department of Transportation’s proposed rule on vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology with Marc Scribner. 

“It sounded a lot better 10, 15 years ago when no one was talking about automated vehicle technology,” Marc Scribner, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA, referring to the draft V2V rule and DSRC as currently envisioned.

Scribner and other V2V-mandate opponents see an opportunity in Trump’s rapid-fire executive orders on freezing and repealing regulations. Trump has said he’s looking to rollback 75 percent of regulations in order to stimulate business growth. Republican House members quickly fell in line, passing two bills aimed at reining in regulations and targeting other last-minute rules passed under former President Barack Obama for repeal. The current deregulatory climate may make it less likely that DOT will push the Obama administration’s draft rule over the finish line.

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The total annual costs to comply with the mandate 30 years after the rule’s launch range from $2.2 billion to $5 billion, according to 2016 NHTSA data. Consumers can expect to pay about an extra $300 per vehicle equipped with DSRC technology, the data show.

For Scribner and others, the return on investment doesn’t justify the V2V rule’s costs. DSRC technology will take four decades to fully penetrate U.S. roads and— even then— it will only warns drivers of potential crashes; distracted or drunk drivers may not benefit to the same degree, Scribner said.

Read the full article at Bloomberg BNA.