Driving Into 2026: The State of NHTSA and the Future of Vehicle Safety Regulation
Consistent with trends in recent years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) continues to pursue a vigorous and ambitious regulatory agenda. Since January 2025, NHTSA has made significant personnel changes, published several major rulemaking proposals, and opened or upgraded over 30 investigations. Together, these developments highlight how NHTSA is blending policy modernization with aggressive enforcement, signaling an increasingly data-driven, technology-neutral approach to safety regulation.
Significant Personnel Changes in 2025
The opening months of the Trump Administration have been marked by a flurry of personnel changes across the federal government. These changes have also affected NHTSA with a reported staff reduction of approximately 25%.[1] The reduction has been a combination of employees opting for buyouts, termination of probationary employees, and retirements that have reduced the Agency’s headcount from abought 780 to roughly 575.[2] These changes reflect the new administration’s push for efficiency and cost-cutting measures.
Regarding senior leadership, from January 2017, at the close of the Obama Administration, until September 2025, NHTSA had a Senate-confirmed Administrator for only five months—between May and September 2022—when Steven Cliff served under the Biden Administration. . In September 2025, Jonathan Morrison was sworn in as NHTSA Administrator. Morrison served as NHTSA’s Chief Counsel for the previous Trump Administration, from 2017 to 2021. Mr. Morrison’s prior experience with the Agency, along with his experience leading a technology company’s legal, regulatory, government affairs, and policy demonstrate the current administrations focus on facilitating the development of advanced vehicle technologies.
DOT’s Innovation Agenda Seeks to Spur Development of Automated Vehicles
In April 2025, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Sean Duffy, introduced a new Automated Vehicle (AV) Framework as part of the DOT’s innovation agenda. The AV Framework advanced three principles:
- Prioritize the safety of ongoing AV operations on public roads;
- Unleash innovation by removing unnecessary regulatory barriers; and
- Enable commercial deployment of AVs to enhance safety and mobility for the
As part of this framework, NHTSA issued the third amended Standing General Order 2021-01 to continue requiring crash reporting of certain advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving systems (ADS). See Third Amended SGO 2021-01 (Apr. 24, 2025). NHTSA also announced through an open letter that it would begin accepting exemption requests for domestically built vehicles pursuant to its authority under 49 U.S.C. § 30114(A).[3] Under § 30114(A), motor vehicles or motor vehicle equipment could be exempted from complying with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for particular purpose, such as research, investigation, demonstrations, or training. Before the April 2024 open letter, NHTSA had limited its use of this exemption authority to the importation of non-FMVSS-compliant vehicles and equipment under 49 CFR Part 591.5(j). By extending use of this exemption authority to domestically produced vehicles and equipment, the open letter marks a significant expansion of NHTSA’s prior practice and begins to level the playing field for domestic developers and manufacturers that do not qualify for the testing exception available to legacy vehicle manufacturers under 49 U.S.C. § 30112(b)(10).
To further remove potential barriers to deploying AVs without manual controls, NHTSA announced proposals to amend four safety standards:
- 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; and
- FMVSS No. 108, Lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment.
Advancing these rulemakings will be a future emphasis for NHTSA as it seeks to demonstrate the efficacy of the DOT’s Innovation Agenda.
These proposals also complement work NHTSA advanced just before the Trump Administration took office. On January 15, 2025, NHTSA published a notice of proposed rulemaking for a voluntary framework to evaluate and oversee ADS-equipped vehicles. See 90 Fed. Reg. 4130 (Jan. 15, 2025). Dubbed the ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program (AV STEP), the framework would be available to vehicle manufacturers, ADS developers, fleet operators, system integrators of ADS-equipped vehicles looking to deploy AVs on public roads, entities seeking an exemption from safety standards, and entities deploying ADS-equipped vehicles that can be lawfully operated on public roads. The program establishes steps for participation, eligibility criteria, data reporting, independent assessments, and ongoing safety oversight.
Notably, in August 2025, NHTSA announced that its AV Framework resulted in a newly issued exemption that would permit a robotaxi manufacturer to operate its AVs without certain manual controls on public roads. In conjunction with the exemption announcement, NHTSA also closed its investigation into the same manufacturer’s self-certification of its purpose-built AVs. The move marked a significant shift in NHTSA’s public stance with respect to the investigation and its approach to prior exemption requests that had languished until manufacturers withdrew their exemption applications.
NHTSA’s Rulemaking and Enforcement Agenda
Beyond NHTSA’s AV Framework, the Agency’s regulatory and enforcement agenda likely will focus on similar themes of ensuring roadway safety, removing unnecessary regulatory burdens, and promoting U.S. manufacturing.
Regarding safety standards and other regulations, NHTSA has published a series of proposed rulemakings aimed at deleting outdated or transitional text across numerous FMVSS,[4] such as phase-in requirements that have expired, redundant language, and performance requirements that overlap with another standard.
Looking at NHTSA’s regulatory agenda, current and upcoming rulemakings provide additional insight into the fairly comprehensive approach NHTSA is taking with respect to emerging technologies. Examples of the Agency’s ongoing rulemaking activities touching on emerging technologies include:
- Non-pneumatic tires;
- Advanced impaired driving technology;
- Modernizing event data recorder (EDR) requirements;
- Modernizing tire standards for passenger vehicles;
- Updating lighting Standards to facilitate new designs and emerging technologies;
- Automatic emergency braking for heavy vehicles; and
- Amending the recent final rule for automatic emergency braking for light vehicles.
These rulemakings provide some insight into how NHTSA will approach safety standards for emerging technologies. The industry should pay close attention to the types of data NHTSA develops to support proposed standards, how the standards remain neutral for technologies that are still developing, and the test protocols (including the extent to which NHTSA uses current or developing industry standards). Lessons from these rulemakings will be useful in shaping the approach NHTSA will use in the near future to address the ever-expanding safety systems and vehicle technologies.
As for enforcement, NHTSA continues to be highly active. In Fiscal Year 2025 (which ended on September 30, 2025), NHTSA opened approximately 33 investigations, with more than 20 of these investigations opened since the beginning of 2025. Backup camera systems have been a particular focus of NHTSA and were the predicate for a recent consent order with a vehicle manufacturer, as well as the subject of two open investigations. This focus has led to a surge of recalls related to issues with backup cameras. Similarly, several open investigations involve potential issues in driver-assistance technologies, such as automatic emergency braking and partial driving automation systems, as well as investigations of Level 3 and Level 5 AVs. These investigations demonstrate NHTSA’s use of data reported under SGO 2021-01, consumer complaints related to newer technologies, and scrutiny of ADS behavior in specific, legally regulated contexts—such as school bus stops and emergency-vehicle interactions. Notably, the majority of open recalls involve software logic, such as brake assist, ADS perception, or airbag controllers, underscoring the need for robust validation processes, effective software update management, and procedures to evaluate the complex interactions among sensor perception, software logic, and driver expectations.
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NHTSA’s 2025 trajectory shows an agency blending deregulation with forward-looking technology oversight, while remaining aggressive in defect enforcement. To reduce enforcement risk, manufacturers must ensure that their internal safety evaluation and reporting procedures are up-to-date and that key personnel maintain proper training on current regulatory requirements and systems/portals used by NHTSA. A robust compliance process should include comprehensive reviews of potential safety issues and, where applicable, conformity to safety standards and other regulatory obligations (such as EWR requirements), as well as ensuring timely and complete responses to NHTSA. For more information, please contact the authors of this article.
[1] David Shepardson, U.S. Auto Safety Agency Shedding More Than 25 Employees, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/us-auto-safety-agency-shedding-more-than-25-employees-2025-07-17/ (July 17, 2025).
[2] See Workforce Statistics, U.S. Dep’t of Transp., (last updated Nov. 12, 2025) (comparing Onboard Statistics, 2nd Quarter FY 2025 to 4th Quarter FY 2025).
[3] See Automated Vehicle Exemption Program: Domestic Exemptions, Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin., https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2025-04/automated-vehicle-exemption-program-domestic-exemptions-2025.pdf (Apr. 24, 2025).
[4] The proposed rulemakings address the following safety standards: FMVSS 204, Steering control rearward displacement; FMVSS 205, Glazing materials; FMVSS 206, Door locks and door retention components; FMVSS 207, Seating systems; FMVSS 210, Seat belt assembly anchorages; FMVSS 214, Side impact protection; FMVSS 216, Roof crush resistance; FMVSS 217, Bus emergency exits and window retention and release; FMVSS 222, School bus passenger seating and crash protection; FMVSS 301, Fuel system integrity; FMVSS 303, Fuel system integrity of compressed natural gas vehicles; and FMVSS 304, Compressed natural gas fuel container integrity.
