New Jersey Lays Down the Law for Robotaxis

[00:00:22] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous driving, and much, much more. My name is Bodie and I am your host and on our last episode, which feels like I just recorded it yesterday because I did, I covered Tesla's email and their objection to how the state of New Jersey wants to regulate robo-taxis.

[00:00:51] And when I was going through it yesterday, I didn't actually read the bill. And as I was talking about it, I was like, as I was talking about it on the show, I was like, I should probably dig more into this bill. That's not a thing that I want to do on a regular basis, to be honest, because it just seems awful to me. And it was, it was awful. The bill was about, I don't know, 20 pages long altogether.

[00:01:18] Some of it, a lot of it repeated. So it wasn't like a heavy lift. But the thing is, right? I was like, well, maybe I'm off on my analysis and maybe I'm being unfair to Tesla. So what I did was I read through the bill, made my notes, and I think what I'm going to do today, and we'll see how much time this takes.

[00:01:42] If it takes a lot of time, this will be the only thing for this episode. If it doesn't, I'll pause the recording as soon as I'm done with this and I'll make up, not make up, I'll get some extra stories in here so that we can actually, you know, have a full show.

[00:01:55] But I'm going to start with the New Jersey bill. And I'm going to read like the summary statement, the introduction section from the bill. And then we're going to go over Tesla's claim versus what it says in the bill and get a little bit of clarification.

[00:02:12] And not just for me, but, you know, from what the bill actually says. Now, I will say, full disclaimer, I have read through bills before, not for this show, for firefighting stuff, just to see what's in there, right?

[00:02:29] I have not ever tried to, you know, do any sort of analysis on them. So I will fully admit that some of this information I might be getting wrong, but if I get it wrong and somebody points it out, then I will be more than happy to come back and clarify and correct myself.

[00:02:47] But as it stands right now, I think I have a good handle on it. Again, I fully admit I can make mistakes. So treat me as if you were to treat chat GPT in this situation. You know, trust but verify is what I should say.

[00:03:07] Oh, oh, hey, guess what I saw on the freeway today. I saw a cyber cab. I was driving on the freeway. This is appropriate for this, this bill or this segment. But I was a passenger and I wasn't driving. I was on on the freeway in the back of a pickup truck. And we were having a nice little drive.

[00:03:30] And the two folks in front, one of them's like, what is that? And I was working on my laptop and I wasn't paying attention to what they said. And they said, Bodie, what is that? And I looked up and I was like, what are you talking about? Like, what is that car? I was like, I mean, like a Nissan Rogue or whatever was directly in front of us. He's like, no, no, over here. And they point off into the left and we're on the I-10 traveling westbound.

[00:03:57] And I was like, oh, that's a cyber cab. And I'm sitting behind the driver. So I unbuckled my seatbelt, not recommended. Unbuckled my seatbelt, slide over to the driver's side because I was sitting behind the passenger, excuse me. Slide over to the driver's side, buckled my belt. And I was like, pull up next to it. I want to get some video. So I got about 10 seconds worth of video because it really, I looked like a creep.

[00:04:20] But anyway, I got a couple of pictures of it from behind and then got a little video of it. But first take, seeing it in real life, small, a lot smaller than I thought. It might be smaller than a Nissan Leaf. I haven't actually looked to see what the distances or what the lengths are, but it is small.

[00:04:40] It is, you know, this one in particular did have a steering wheel. And there was a driver, obviously, because it's not approved yet here in Arizona, or at least they haven't started if it has been approved. And it's definitely not approved to drive on the freeways. But there was a driver in it and he was actually driving hands on the wheels.

[00:04:59] It looked, you know, he, I don't know if he looked annoyed when he looked at me filming it, or if he just, maybe I'm just, you know, projecting in that case. But I was like, I got really, I was very excited. It is an ugly color. Cool looking car. I do not like the color. So I'm not really sure why Tesla decided to go with that gold. But I'm not a fan.

[00:05:27] It, it's not a shiny gold. It's like more muted and it definitely stands out, but the car stands out anyway. But yeah, I thought it looked great in terms of just the overall look of the car. Again, not, not a super good fan of the color. It's almost like a vomit yellow. Almost. But yeah, I got super excited to be able to see one in real life.

[00:05:57] So I haven't seen an R2 yet, but I'm planning on doing a lot of things this weekend out and about. So I'm hoping to come across an R2 in real life. I was driving and making a left turn and I saw a new Rivian or it looked new. It was nice and shiny and white. And I was like, oh, is that an R2? But I had to turn left and they would have been behind me and I had to get somewhere. So I wasn't able to verify that that was a Rivian R2 or an R1 S. It was probably an R1 S though.

[00:06:28] All right. That was my exciting news. Please email me a questions. Oh, and you know what? In the pictures, they have these big, huge like plates on the tires, right? For aerodynamics. In the pictures, I was not a fan of that look. But in reality, when you see it, I didn't even really notice it until we were driving away that that was there.

[00:06:54] So, you know, just goes to prove that things look different in real life. Okay, that's the Cyber Cab update. Let's move on to New Jersey Bill A3968. This is from the introduction section and this is the statement for the bill.

[00:07:17] Starting off, this bill requires the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission in consultation with the Department of Transportation to establish a three-year pilot program to allow autonomous vehicle testers, which would be companies like Zoox, Waymo, and Tesla. This isn't part of the bill. This is just me talking. That's what the autonomous vehicle testers would be, to operate full autonomous vehicles in the state.

[00:07:43] The pilot program will be overseen by a task force made up of five members composed of public safety officials, transportation experts, and autonomous vehicle industry representatives, and consumer advocates appointed by the commission in consultation with the Department of Transportation.

[00:08:08] So for this, five members, you're going to have basically one public safety official, one transportation expert, one autonomous vehicle expert, and a customer advocate, and then a wild card, I guess, that could be from any of those, you know, four different disciplines, I guess. And then this is what the task force is required to do.

[00:08:37] The task force is required to provide quarterly reports to a commission and to the Department of Transportation regarding the status of the pilot program. They need to solicit public feedback concerning the pilot program. They need to assist the commission. Okay, to make things easier, when I say commission, I mean the Motor Vehicle Commission for New Jersey.

[00:09:02] And when I say department, it's Department of Transportation, just to kind of make this go a little bit easier. All right. So they're going to assist the commission and department in establishing responses and protocols to autonomous vehicle collisions, cyber attacks against manufacturers and autonomous vehicles, major operation disruptions concerning autonomous vehicles,

[00:09:28] and liability in the event of autonomous vehicle collisions, and coordinate with the New Jersey Division of State Police in the Office of the Attorney General to develop guidelines to govern pedestrian and driver security and safety. So basically what they're saying here is that to this point, if I'm reading this right, we are going to have, you know, we're going to take three years.

[00:09:56] We're going to work with not only autonomous vehicle testers, but also, you know, experts in other fields like public safety and things like that. And then we're going to kind of develop a plan instead of a bunch of lawmakers making rules that may or may not be good for the community. You know, I don't see anything wrong with this.

[00:10:20] It's definitely a slower approach, but it's an approach that is probably you're going to hear more voices for sure from the community. And I don't see anything wrong with it so far. So going on, and I promise there's not too much of this, Tesla, excuse me, testers, the autonomous vehicle companies themselves like Waymo, Zooks, Tesla or whoever else is doing this.

[00:10:49] Testers are not permitted to operate autonomous vehicles in the state unless certain conditions are met. And this is probably where Tesla has their problem. So continuing on with the summary, specifically, the operator is required to be seated in the autonomous vehicles, driver's seat, monitor the autonomous vehicles operation and be capable of immediate manual control of the autonomous vehicle.

[00:11:17] This person needs to be, I'm paraphrasing now, they need to be an employee, an independent contractor or other person designated and trained by the AV tester. Again, Waymo, Zooks, Tesla or whoever's operating the robot taxi concerning the capabilities and limitations of the autonomous vehicle, not be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. That seems like a given. I don't think Tesla is probably arguing that that's unfair to them.

[00:11:46] Possess a valid driver's license. Let's see. Or other appropriate license. Let's see here. The robot taxi company is required to register the autonomous vehicle and submit proof of liability insurance. And they need self-insurance or a surety bond of at least $5 million to the commission.

[00:12:09] So if I had to guess, Tesla doesn't want to put somebody in the driver's seat because they would prefer not to have anybody in the driver's seat. Now, is that the only problem they might have? No, there's probably other problems down the road here. But I think that's maybe an obvious one, if I had to guess.

[00:12:29] Now, it goes on to say the chief administrator of the commission is permitted to immediately prohibit an operator or tester from operating an autonomous vehicle if the chief administrator determines that such operation poses a risk to public safety or that the operator or autonomous vehicle fails to comply with the provisions in the bill. Now, I don't know that this is any different from any other state, honestly.

[00:12:56] But I could see where a company, not going to say which company, but I could see where a company that is used to pushing up against the boundaries of what the rules are, would not want one person within government to be able to just shut them down for whatever reason. And, you know, I don't know what the parameters would be.

[00:13:23] I don't know who the chief administrator is in this case, but I don't know what their parameters would be outside of, you know, the autonomous vehicle company. Robo taxi company isn't following the rules, but, you know, it is. They could look at that and say what you're doing isn't safe and we're not going to let you do it anymore. So I can, that might be a problem, might not be a problem. Let's see.

[00:13:49] A tester, the robo taxi company participating in the pilot program is required to provide the chief administrator with certain information appropriate for measuring the performance and pilot program, but is permitted to withhold commercially viable confidential or proprietary information. This is something that I think Tesla would actually like. They seem to prefer not telling people, not to say that they're not transparent with the government,

[00:14:19] but they seem to prefer to keep that information close to the rest. Whereas some other companies, robo taxi companies out there are, don't do that. Any autonomous vehicle being operated under the pilot program is required to number one, they need to be equipped with a redundant safety system and technology that ensures appropriate motor vehicle control. Tesla's are full of redundancies.

[00:14:47] So I don't think that's going to be a problem for the company. And they need to allow the operator or emergency responders to override the autonomous functions and allow operators to take control of the automatic vehicle. I don't think Tesla has an issue in this regard either. They need to alert operators when autonomous vehicle technology has been disengaged and the operator is required to take control of the vehicle. Again, no big deal.

[00:15:16] They need to maintain data recordings beginning 30 seconds before collision and be able to capture operational data and be capable of capturing operational data. They need to be equipped with certain crash avoidance systems. They need to comply with posted speed limits. That might be a problem. They need to comply with posted speed limits. They need to emit an artificial noise for pedestrian safety. They need to meet industrial cyber security standards and ensure that all data is encrypted.

[00:15:46] And then there needs to be a visible marker that indicates that the vehicle is an autonomous vehicle. All of this is reasonable. And I think Tesla meets all of this. So I don't see that being the problem with the bill. Under the bill, all autonomous vehicle collisions are to be reported to the department within 48 hours. Additionally, the bill requires the department to establish an autonomous vehicle testing. Excuse me.

[00:16:12] Additionally, the bill requires the department to establish autonomous vehicle testing environments, which include closed test beds and open test beds and utilize existing autonomous vehicle testing environments. So basically, they're required. The state's saying here that the state is required to provide funding for a closed test area and an open test area. And the money doesn't come from the robotaxi companies. It comes from the state. That seems reasonable.

[00:16:47] Let's see. Yeah. And it's interesting in here. It says the department is required to identify funding sources to invest and to coordinate with counties and municipalities to deploy smart infrastructure for autonomous vehicles, which includes sensor equipped roads, communication systems and real time traffic management technology.

[00:17:09] I mean, I could imagine that that would be more also beneficial for everybody on the road, not just the autonomous vehicle companies. But I think that's cool that they're putting money into that. Autonomous vehicles operating as taxis are to operate on designated highways, be marked as fully autonomous, be continuously monitored through data reporting,

[00:17:37] and have a communication system for emergency overrides by authorities. Now, I don't know what they mean by authorities here. Do they mean authorities being the state or do they mean authorities being somebody within the company that can make overrides?

[00:17:54] And if I were a company, if I was operating in a robo taxi service, I would want to know who could, you know, if not my employees for the overriding, I wouldn't feel comfortable with other people being able to do that overrides. Let's see.

[00:18:13] Autonomous vehicles operating as commercial trucks like semis or, you know, delivery trucks in some way are to operate on designated highways under specific speed, weight and weight restrictions set by the department and operators. They are required to have appropriate licensing to handle manual controls if needed. And then, you know, they're authorizing platooning, which is really cool.

[00:18:43] Like if you have one lead truck that this is the way it's supposed to work. I don't know if this is how it'll work in New Jersey, but you have one lead truck that's driven by a human driver, right? Or maybe monitored by a human driver. And then you could have other commercial trucks behind that that are autonomous vehicles that are operating, you know, almost like a train, right?

[00:19:08] Or a convoy behind that autonomous, that initial first truck that's platooning. So finally, platooning is authorized for autonomous vehicles operating as commercial trucks on highways with a lead vehicle controlled by an operator. Trucks that employ synchronized braking and acceleration that follow the lead vehicle may operate as fully autonomous vehicles without a human driver.

[00:19:35] So as long as they, this is not for the, this is not for the taxi cabs. This is for autonomous vehicles like semi trucks, commercial trucks that are operating on certain highways under certain conditions under certain speeds. But I think that's cool. That's a neat technology. Now, do I think that's cool? I want that on the roads. I want to be a part of that testing. Yeah, I don't know. The semi trucks can cause a lot of damage.

[00:20:04] Um, but ultimately, you know, eventually I think this will be a, we got to test it somewhere and hopefully nobody gets heard. It's really kind of where I'm going with that. Okay. One last paragraph. The commission is required to no later than six months after completion of the three-year pilot program to submit to the governor and legislator legislature,

[00:20:29] a report that evaluates the program and includes recommendations for safe integration of autonomous vehicles on state highways. So based on this summary, they are not saying you cannot operate Tesla in our state with robo taxis.

[00:20:50] They are saying you need to meet these certain guidelines and before you can operate in our state and we're going to go slow. And you know what? That's okay. I think Tesla might be making a lot of to do about nothing based on their current ramp of robo taxis. You know, there's 50 other states that they could be testing in. Well, not 50. That's not right because New Jersey is one of the states.

[00:21:19] There are a bunch of other states that they could be testing in that do not have the same rules that New Jersey has. But I think taking time to develop smart, useful legislation for autonomous vehicles and taxis, I think that's, I think this is a really smart way of doing it.

[00:21:45] Like I don't have a huge problem necessarily with what New Jersey is doing. I don't think they're stifling technology. They're definitely slowing things down though. It seems like. But if Tesla wanted to operate a robo taxi service in New Jersey, they could have a driver in the driver's seat and said driver could just be there to take over whenever they need to, whenever there's an emergency.

[00:22:13] And the people who are riding in the robo taxi can still have all of the things that Tesla was talking about. Like, you know, elderly people can still get to where they need to go. People with mobility issues can still get to where they need to go with a driver in the front seat. So, and I'm curious as if, I don't think Tesla's going to have a problem with the, if there's a collision, it needs to be reported within 48 hours. I don't think that's going to be a problem with Tesla.

[00:22:41] I really think it might just be the fact that they're requiring people to be sitting in the seats. Like everything else, it seems like they've already got covered. Now, I, what I did was, as I looked at some of Tesla's claims and I looked through the bill and I tried to either prove that what their claim was correct or, or not correct.

[00:23:06] So, so Tesla's claim that it's a, it's a ban on Tesla's robo taxi service. The legislation, this is what they say. The legislation imposes restrictions so severely that Tesla autonomous vehicles of autonomous vehicle technology could not legally operate it.

[00:23:26] Now, the ban does not specifically bill, uh, uh, the bill, excuse me, does not specifically ban Tesla's from the New Jersey market. Um, so yeah, um, they do define fully autonomous vehicle in the bill though.

[00:23:47] And that would be, um, a system classified as, you know, the society of automotive engineers, level four or level five autonomy. And in Texas, Tesla has self-certified themselves as level four autonomy, but I would imagine in New Jersey, whatever, you know, when, whatever the, um, certification on processes in New Jersey, they would not pass that.

[00:24:16] Uh, if, if I had to guess now the society of automotive engineers is the same level four, level five in New Jersey, as it is in California, as it is in Texas. But my guess is, uh, maybe New Jersey, uh, follows the, uh, maybe they're a little bit more, um, follow the letter of the, like, they're not gonna let you self-certify. They're, you're gonna have to prove that you can hit level four or level five. I'm going to guess if that's the thing.

[00:24:46] So. Yeah. Um, yeah. Cause the bill specifically sets out a pilot program for only level four and level five and their consumer vehicles definitely don't qualify. And it kind of maybe seems like their robo taxis at this point in time wouldn't qualify either. If I had to guess, uh, the driver physical requirement, you know, uh, we already kind of talked about that.

[00:25:15] And Tesla's not going to love the fact that they have to have a driver, but you know, they have a driver in San Francisco and they're, you know, I don't know if they're doing fine, but you know, they're operating in that area. Let's see. Um, Tesla claims or they ask that supporters, uh, make the bill a technology neutral, um, bill.

[00:25:44] And I don't know, I don't know. From what I can gather, the, the bill doesn't really specifically have much to do with like the different technology just needs to hit the level four, level five driving. They're arguing that the specific design restrictions, um, are, I guess, against Tesla, but you know,

[00:26:13] the bill allows the vehicle to be manually overridden, uh, let's see through the use of brake accelerator pedal and steering wheel, which currently Tesla you can do. So I'm not sure what, and I would love for somebody that if they know more about this to, to chime in here. Um, you know, there's a bill that it says that it must emit an artificial noise for pedestrian safety. Like Tesla cars can do that.

[00:26:42] I don't have an art time figuring out specifically what the technology neutral, as far as I could tell, it didn't have anything that said anything about LIDAR or anything like that. You know, or radar or ultrasonic sensors. I don't remember seeing any of that in the bill. Yeah.

[00:27:05] And I just stopped the recording to see if there was any mention in the bill about LIDAR, radar, or ultrasonic sensors. And there's not. So, um, I'm not sure what they were like.

[00:27:19] Like, it just seems like Tesla's not at the level four, level five, or they don't have the ability to certify in New Jersey at the level four, level five self-driving because, you know, they're not, um, allowing them to self-certify.

[00:27:37] There's, there's nothing in here that leads me to believe that Tesla's being, um, specifically being written out and say, you know, you can't be a part of this because of, because you're Tesla. I don't think that's, I just don't think that's happening here.

[00:28:02] Um, the biggest thing is that it requires a human driver, a steering wheel. I mean, a human person in the, in the driver's seat, a steering wheel, pedals, you know, uh, actual control of the car if need be, if you need to take it over. I mean, this is, this is all things other than the SAE level four, level five autonomous system.

[00:28:28] Um, this seems like this should be a slam dunk for Tesla if they actually were able to qualify for four level four, level five autonomous driving. So, yeah, I found that interesting. Um, do you, should we do a couple of stories? I'm going to write a couple of stories at the end here and, uh, just as a thank you for sitting around. I don't know if anybody found this interesting.

[00:28:57] I kind of found it interesting. I think bills, you know, law, uh, writing the law and all that stuff. I think that's kind of boring myself. However, going through this, um, with like a, um, kind of like a critical eye of like, are they being unfair to one specific company? Not just Tesla. And I don't see that. I, I see this bill as, I mean, um, I'm, uh, all right.

[00:29:27] Without getting political, I think much of our government, um, in terms of laws and the way that it's run is fine. Most of the time I do think, and this isn't specific to a local level or a federal level or whatever's in between. Right.

[00:29:46] I do think there is a very small amount of, of government that is theater and that theater is distracting and takes away from all the other stuff that's working in the government. I'm not one of those people that, cause I, I mean, I work in the government. It's my job. Um, there are plenty of things to be frustrated about as an employee and as a citizen when it comes to your government.

[00:30:11] Um, but for the most part, I mean, I live in the city of Tempe and I think the city of Tempe has ran pretty well. Um, from a resident standpoint, the city that I work for by and large, there's some things that I would like to see changed, but I think it's run pretty well by and large.

[00:30:27] Um, there's definitely improvement improvements that could be made, but I think the, the little bit that's done for theater, I think just kind of distracts or detracts from, um, all the good stuff that's being done. And this is an example of a bill that actually makes a lot of sense. I think if I'm wrong here, please let me know.

[00:30:51] Cause I'm, I'm more than happy to retract any of anything that I've said to this point, but I, you know, they've, they've got a closed area that they can test in and then they can move into an open area and all this seems reasonable. So, and Tesla's got more than enough money to pay somebody $30 an hour to sit in a car as it drives around and for testing. They got more than enough money to do that. That's not going to make them poor. You know, it's not going to break the company.

[00:31:23] All right, everybody. Um, you know, let me do a couple of news stories. So I'm going to go write some things up and I will come right back to you. You won't notice. Some of you might get an ad break. But not if you go to support kilowatt and support the show, you will not get an ad break. That's support kilowatt.com. Okay. Let's see. Did you get an ad break? If you didn't, congratulations.

[00:31:52] Uh, let's see here. Man, my eyes are so bad. All right. I wrote up a couple of quick stories here. First of all, Rivian R2 performance weighs about 500 pounds more and is about 9.6. inches taller than the Model Y performance. But according to the EPA ratings, the efficiency is the same as the Model Y performance.

[00:32:20] The R2 has 21 inch wheels and gets 32 kilowatt hours or consumes 32 kilowatt hours for every hundred miles. So that's cool. Uh, let's see. It's probably not a surprise that Ford will be using LFP batteries for their $30,000 pickup. That shouldn't be a shock. But Ford is going to use LFP prismatic cells, which are rectangular cells.

[00:32:49] They're not cylindrical cells. To power their new UEV in a partnership with CATL. And it looks like Ford will be licensing the technology from the, uh, for the battery and the manufacturing from CATL. But it doesn't look like CL, CATL is going to directly be doing the manufacturing. You know, um, the best way to make an affordable vehicle is use affordable parts. So this makes sense.

[00:33:18] And we'll see this truck in 2027. And finally, Waymo is recalling some RoboTaxis, RoboTaxis. Sorry, I just woke up from, I recorded last night and then I woke up this morning and I'm tired. Uh, Waymo is recalling some RoboTaxis because they might drive into closed highway construction lanes or, or just closed highways altogether.

[00:33:44] And the problem is obviously that it's closing, it's going to, you know, drive into closed lanes, but it's also driving into closed lanes that highway speeds. So this recall affects 3871 RoboTaxis using the fifth generation, uh, autonomous driving system that Waymo has. The recall did stem from real life events, but these events did not cause any injuries. It just, this is something they're concerned about.

[00:34:13] But I think you could imagine how, uh, problematic it is that a, you know, if a, if a rogue Waymo had blasted into a construction zone full of people, that would be an issue for sure. Just, uh, as a side night, side note, the Ohay vans, which are the vans made by Zeker with the cool elevator doors, they're using sixth generation autonomous driving system for Waymo.

[00:34:40] So they're not affected, but there's also not very many of them. All right, everybody, that is it for me. If this was interesting to you, uh, please let me know. Cause you know, it's not like I'm going to be doing special bill episodes, but I've never done one before. It was kind of learning how to present it and let me know what you thought. You want more? Never want to do it again. You stopped listening after you heard that I was going to be reading the bill. Let me know.

[00:35:10] You can email me Bodie, B O D I E at nine one eight digital.com. You can follow me on LinkedIn. It's Bodie Grimm, B O D I E G R I M M. Thank you all so much for listening. I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you soon.

[00:35:40] If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening. Bye. Bye.