PTI New Delhi

The Trump administration is loosening rules to help US automakers like Elon Musk's Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals. US companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the Transportation Department said on Thursday.

The department also said it will streamline crash reporting requirements involving self-driving software that Musk has criticized as onerous and will move toward a single set of national rules for the technology to replace a patchwork of state regulations.

"We're in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn't be higher," said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a statement. "Our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard." The new exemption procedures will allow US automakers to apply to skip certain safety rules for self-driving vehicles if they are used only for research, demonstrations and other non-commercial purposes. The exemptions were in place previously for foreign, imported vehicles whose home country rules may be different than those in the US.

India’s PV volume to scale fresh high in FY26

India's passenger vehicle (PV) industry is set to scale a fresh high this fiscal with domestic and export volume cumulatively crossing 5 million units even as the annual growth rate slows to 2-4 per cent, a report showed on Friday. A Crisil Ratings report said that this marks the fourth consecutive year of record sales, although momentum has significantly eased from the 25 per cent surge in fiscal 2023 after the pandemic.