The Next 15 Months Will Define Autonomous Vehicle Policy in America

Executive Summary

In this episode of The Road to Autonomy podcast, Grayson Brulte sat down with Varun Jain, Of Counsel, K&L Gates to discuss why the next 15 months will define autonomous vehicle policy in America. With the next 15 months being critical for autonomous vehicle legislation and regulation, this episode dives into the essential actions being taken by the administration and Congress, to ensure safety, foster innovation, and secure America’s strategic advantage in autonomy

The conversation highlights key legislative efforts such as the Self-Drive Act and the Autonomous Vehicle Acceleration Act, and stresses the importance of industry unity and public education to overcome gridlock and realize the immense potential that autonomous vehicles will have on the U.S. economy.

Key The Road to Autonomy Episode Questions Answered

Key The Road to Autonomy Topics & Timestamps

[00:48] The Current State of Autonomous Vehicle Policy

The outlook for autonomous vehicle (AV) policy on Capitol Hill is described as complicated but promising, with the next 15 months being a critical period for legislation and regulation. The existing federal framework, the Safety Act, is still in place, but the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) are outdated and were not designed with Automated Driving Systems (ADS) in mind.

[01:46] NHTSA Leadership and Confirmation

The confirmation of Jonathan Morrison as NHTSA Administrator is really good news for both the industry and safety advocates. Mr. Morrison is seen as a thoughtful leader with a deep understanding of the law and the tech space, who can be trusted to advance autonomy.

[02:59] Trump Administration’s Regulatory Actions 

The Trump administration has taken impressive steps, including streamlining the general order on crash reporting. They have also expanded the automated vehicle exemption program, which now applies to domestic manufacturers for testing, not just imported vehicles. Furthermore, the administration plans to streamline Part 555 (for limited commercial exemptions) and revise FMVSS and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) to address manual control requirements that don’t apply to Automated Driving Systems (ADS).

[04:44] Legislative Priorities: Key Ideas in AV Bills 

While multiple autonomous vehicle bills exist, their main ideas are similar, focusing on safety, cybersecurity, data reporting, and preemption. Key safety ideas include demonstrating ADS safety via a safety case or a “driving competency” FMVSS. Crucially, the bills aim to establish a federal preemptive framework for vehicle design and construction, preventing manufacturers from having to deal with 50 different state standards.

[08:44] Specific Legislation in the House and Senate 

In the House, the Self-Drive Act (a federal framework for autonomous vehicles) and the America Drives Act (for commercial motor vehicles, allowing L4/L5 autonomous vehicles to operate interstate without humans onboard) are reasonably far along. In the Senate, the Autonomous Vehicle Acceleration Act would fix outdated FMVSS and direct the Secretary of Transportation to develop an autonomous vehicle deployment roadmap.

[10:50] The Legislative Vehicle: Surface Transportation Reauthorization 

The most viable path for autonomous vehicle legislation to pass is by inclusion in the surface transportation reauthorization. This comprehensive bill, which sets funding and priorities and expires in September 2026, is one of the few big bills that regularly passes Congress.

[12:44] Why Now? Deployment and Political Gridlock 

The increasing visibility of autonomous vehicle testing and deployment (“autonomous vehicles are here and are here to stay”) is what animates politicians to act. A stable federal framework is needed. While a government shutdown is a risk, it’s not expected to dramatically affect the long-term progress of legislation or the multi-year regulatory process at NHTSA.

[20:07] Overcoming Negative Media Bias

A major challenge is that “bad stories sell,” leading to negative media coverage that is often driven by ad dollars/traffic. The industry needs to go on the offensive to demonstrate the value of autonomous vehicles, especially in terms of safety and job creation, to counter the public’s “fear of the unknown” and the instinct to want control.

[28:44] Messaging: Jobs and Health Implications 

The industry is urged to better pitch the White House on the job creation potential of autonomy, not just by creating new jobs but by improving existing ones. Additionally, the industry needs to publish health data on the positive health implications for long-haul drivers (e.g., solving issues related to diabetes and vibration in the seat).

[35:14] Balancing Multi-Level Regulatory Requirements 

Managing the “alphabet soup” of regulations at the city, county, state (e.g., DMV, CUPC), and federal levels is difficult. Companies must treat regulatory and compliance as a core business function, not an afterthought, by prioritizing early planning, early hires, and open engagement with regulators.

[38:29] Policy as a Core Business Function 

Policy blunders hurt the entire industry. To overcome this, regulatory and compliance policy must be integrated into business decision-making from the start, requiring a muscle to be developed where the regulatory impact of every action is considered. Companies must “practice” their processes so they are prepared to respond correctly when an accident or issue occurs.

[41:00] The 15-Month Outlook for a National Autonomous Vehicle Framework 

When asked about the realistic possibility of getting a national autonomous vehicle framework that includes trucks over 10,001 gross pounds in the next 15 months, the answer is that there is a possibility, but it requires a lot of hard work. The industry must unite and clearly explain why autonomy is good for America (safety, economy, jobs) to every stakeholder.

Full Episode Transcript

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Grayson Brulte: Varun, it’s great to have you here. I’m super excited to have a policy conversation. It’s one of my favorite topics. And over the last, what, five years, six years, seven years policy for autonomous vehicle trucks has gone forward. It’s gone backwards. It even went into neutral, and it’s ki it’s kind of paused. So today, September, 2025, what is the outlook for autonomous vehicle policy on the Hill?

Varun Jain: Well, first thanks so much for having. Me Grace, and I’m a big fan of the podcast. I think you’re doing great things for the folks in autonomy and I, I’d love to share a little about what’s going on. I think right now, you know, the current state of autonomy of AV policy on the Hill is complicated, but it’s promising. The next year is gonna be a really big year. The next 15 months are, are very important for legislation, for regulation, and for addressing some other legal issues. So right now. The federal framework that has governed motor vehicle design, construction, and performance called the Safety Act is, is still in place. And what that means, and I think many of your listeners who’ve been longtime listeners know, that motor vehicles have to comply with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. And those established some performance based minimum safety requirements. And that’s why there are so few accidents on the road these days. And manufacturers have to self-certify. There’s a whole process for that called MO location. The FMVSS are outdated, so they’re not designed with ADS in mind, and there have to be some big changes to address those. Right now, the administration has been taking a number of steps to start to address and incorporate ADS into the, the motor vehicle ecosystem. Why didn’t I go over some of those? Actions that the administration has been taking, which I think are really impressive. And then I’ll get into some of the builds that are on the hill. And the first thing I’ll note is that Jonathan Morrison was recently confirmed. That is really good news. That’s really good news for the industry, and I think it’s really good news for safety advocates. Also, the reason is because Jonathan’s not a pushover. Jonathan has a deep understanding of these issues. He has been the chief counsel in Mitsa. He understands all the law. He’s worked at Apple, so he understands what life is like for a company that is in the tech space. He cares deeply about these issues and what that means is that you’re gonna have someone who, at the end of the day, you can trust his judgment. No, he will work with industry, who will work with state and local governments. He will work with key stakeholders to help advance autonomy and being thoughtful. That is really excellent news, and I think we have to commend the administration. For prioritizing is confirmation. So what has the administration done so far? And feel free Grayson, and feel free to stop me anytime if you have any questions. Happy to, happy to go on any tangents with you. So what has the administration done so far? First there is a standing general order on crash reporting. The administration streamlined that order. That is great. That’s an easy win for the administration and that’s very helpful for AV companies. Next, the administration expanded the automated vehicle exemption program that is for testing and that previously applied only to imported vehicles. It’s called Box seven. And you know that, that always struck me, honestly, it struck me as odd it should apply to domestic manufacturers as well. This administration has done that and I think as an example where the administrator sort of put its money where its mouth was. I believe Zoox was, was approved under that program. Next, the administration said it’s gonna streamline Part 555 and that’s another way to get a limited exemption. That exemption includes, you know, commercial activity. It’s limited to 2,500 vehicles unless there’s a hardship. Um, but it is, it is a way for folks to start testing the commercialization of their vehicle. I think we just recently saw Zoox submit a Part 555 exception as well. So the last thing is the administration has said that it’s gonna revise some federal motor vehicle safety standards and some federal motor carrier safety regulations for ADS. And those are related to driver or manual control requirements that really make no sense with EDS. That’s what’s going on with the administration. There are other security issues that I’m sure we can get to also, but if we’re just talking about the motor vehicle, that’s where the policy is these days. Like I said, it’s complicated but promising. These rulemakings take time. They take agency resources and they take some, some dedicated at the top to really push it through. Jonathan Morrison is the right person for that. I’m very excited he’s there now. What is going on in congress? There’s a lot that’s going on in Congress. The, the thing to know though, is that even though there may be four or five, six bills at any one time, the main idea of lots of these bills are pretty similar. And so why don’t I just take you through the main idea of the bills and then we can go through the, the specific bill on the house, a specific bill on the Senate and where they are. So the main ideas are about safety, cybersecurity. Data reporting, preemption and a few other things. On the safety side, what folks in the industry would like. And what makes a lot of sense is, some demonstration that the ADS is safe. That can come from a safety case, federal Motor Vehicle Safety standard, or perhaps an independent required. And the main idea here is that like companies are developing a safety case as part of their self-certification process, and that’s required the safety act. So self-certification and safety cases, a structured, documented argument supported by evidence that demonstrates there’s not an unreasonable risk to safety for the systems intended to use some public roads. That’s like a very long way of saying, Hey, these folks are working carefully to make sure whatever’s going out the door is safe. And if you have a federal requirement. Compelling folks to do that from a process perspective. That’s great. There’s also, in some of these bills, the driver competency, federal Motor Vehicle Safety standard, and the idea there is, okay, there’s a core set of behavioral things we want ADS to do. So we want various maneuvers. We gotta gotta make sure that ADS can handle those, like responding to emergency vehicles. Left handed turns addressing manual traffic flow controllers. Like if you just have some sort of construction zone in front of you, the ADS should be able to address that in a thoughtful way. ADS should also be able to detect and handle vulnerable road users and the ADS should be able to achieve a, a minimal risk condition when appropriate, which basically means, hey, if it’s something you can’t handle, get out of the way and chill out. And that’s, that’s like sort of what we want for a driving competency. FMVSS. On the cybersecurity side, manufacturers have to develop cybersecurity and privacy plans. And then with data reporting there has to be some standardization. It is a challenge to, I mean, I’ve done it when I was, in-house counsel at Nuro, I did it, but it is hard to think about every single regulator you have to report to within a slightly different way, on slightly different timelines. And that is money shouldn’t be spending that money on legal. You should be spending that money improving your autonomy system. If you have a standardized federal framework for data reporting, you will do that. Then the other big thing is preemption. So design construction performance of motor vehicles, that should be done on a federal level because these large manufacturers, you know, they cannot deal with 50 standards and they won’t. They just won’t operate and investors won’t invest. So you need a, a federal preemptive framework. There’s also updating outdated Federal Motor Vehicle safety standards so that we remove things that just don’t make sense with ADS, like manual controls or windshield wipers. Like why do you have a windshield wiper when no one actually needs to see outside of the vehicle? Or why do you have rear view camera requirements, which I think is FMVSS by the way. There’s also some changes to the FMCSR. To address the applicability of some operational requirements, like hours of service, that’s not really necessary. If you have an ADS operating a truck, there’s also the expansion of testing authority. I mean, there’s some three or four ways to, to test in the US these days. And if you wanna expand that to a, a broader pool of, a broader pool of companies, including tech companies. And I think those are the, those are the big ones. Now as far as what is going on, house is a little more advanced than the Senate these days. On the house side there is work on the Self-Drive Act that’s Representative Latta Bill, and I believe that Representative Dingle is working with it. That’s been introduced a number of times, and that’s a federal framework for autonomous vehicles. It will direct NSTA on some of the actions that I’ve just described, as well as establish requirements for some of the other actions. Now, the, that has been introduced in Congress a number of times. I believe it even passed the house once. This could be, this could be the time that we see something really exciting. There’s also the America Drives Act, which is a representative Fong’s bill, and that’s for commercial motor vehicles. And that would preempt state driver in requirements and allow level four and level five AVs to operate interstate commerce without humans onboard. And it would also revise the FMCSR. And those, those two bills, I’d say are reasonably far along. We’ve heard good sites. We’ve heard good things from the House, TNI committee that. Has jurisdiction over commercial motor vehicles and from House Energy and commerce that has jurisdiction over motor vehicle safety. We know that those folks are working together in a bipartisan fashion to develop something, and I’ll explain it in a minute why it’s important that folks are working together in bipartisan fashion for this one. On the Senate side, Senator Lummis has introduced the Autonomous Vehicle Acceleration Act that would fix the outdated federal motor vehicle safety standards that I was talking about. And is, and is, and it would direct the Secretary of Transportation to develop a roadmap to deploy L four and L five autonomous vehicles. Now, as you can tell, that is a little less advanced than on the house side, but there’s always good discussion between staffers on both sides, the Congress people to find something workable. And then from the Senate side, now majority Leader Thune had introduced the the AV start Bill. It’s important that he’s a supporter of this type of technology and we’re excited to see, the progress. Now, I mentioned bipartisan because you’re probably asking well, Varun. Okay, great. Each of these committees is gonna develop this legislation, but how’s it gonna pass? How’s the president gonna sign this though? The way to do it, the current thinking on the hill is that it’ll be done through the surface transportation reauthorization. Not much passes Congress these days. There are a few big bills including National Defense Appropriations Act, the NDAA, occasionally some appropriations acts and, and reauthorizations including stuff for transportation reauthorization. So every five years or so you have, everyone getting together in Congress saying, okay, what should the finding levels be? What should the priorities be for surface transportation for the next five years? The current Surface Transportation reauthorization is expiring September 30th, 2026. And what we expect to see is that there’s gonna be a lot of work done to having new surface transportation re. Whether it will pass, before this one expires is an open question. And part of that is because the midterms are coming up and every time a midterm comes up, an issue that wasn’t political before can become political very quickly if it’s a way to exert pressure on the other party. So no guarantees, but the surface transportation reauthorization is the best place for autonomous vehicle legislation and we know that. Both, on the senate, senate side and the house side, and especially the house side, folks are working very carefully to find something that’ll, that’ll work for all.

Grayson Brulte: why is the time now? Because I asked that because there’s a potential, and I have to use the word potential ’cause nothing in in DC is guaranteed until it happens. A, a, a shutdown. That concerns me. You cannot open any newspaper, turn on CNN or you turn on Fox News. Nobody seems to agree on anything and on the safety, I’m sorry to say this, Varun folks can’t even agree that autonomous vehicles are safer, even though we have audited data from Swiss Re, one of the largest reinsurers in the world, verifying and putting the seal of approval on that. So why is the, the time now?

Varun Jain: Yeah, well, I think that the sort of proof is in what we’re seeing. If you take a look, if you zoom outside of DC and the bubble that we have here, you see more and more autonomous vehicle testing and deployment. I was in San Francisco visiting some clients the other day. I got into a number of autonomous vehicles. They are everywhere and not just are they everywhere physically in these places where they’re being tested and deployed, but they’re on social media. Folks are folks are going to Las Vegas. Just to ride in the Zoox vehicle. And what we see is that this broader recognition that autonomous vehicles are here and are here to stay is something that really animates politicians. It animates ’em to do something. What that thing is we have to help show is providing a thoughtful, stable framework for the testing and development of autonomous vehicles in the United States now as to shut down . think the most people here believe there will be a shutdown. The longest shutdown lasted, I, I don’t think it lasted more than maybe 37 or 38 days. The question is, what happens during a shutdown and does that prevent all the work you need to do from being done? It is true that I think on the regulatory side, regulatory side at Mitsa, you’re gonna see, folks not being able to work on regulations that will advance autonomy, but. My sense is at some point there will be an agreement to restart the government. And I think that as long as NHTSA makes autonomous vehicle regulations a priority, we it will still be able to accomplish its goals. Takes a long time to go through the regulatory process. It sometimes takes years, so I don’t think a few weeks here or there is gonna change things that much. And I think a lot of these bills are in. In more advanced shape. And so I don’t think that the shutdown will dramatically, if there is one, will dramatically affect, the development of those builds.

Grayson Brulte: I wanna say on the NHTSA front, Mr. Jonathan Morrison. Sir, congratulations. I wish you well and to the folks that are wondering, Mr. Morrison, as you alluded to. Has the pedigree. And Mr. Morrison, in my personal belief, we’ll put safety first and he’ll do a really great job to move the autonomous technology forward in a safe way and also in a way that you see messaging from Secretary Duffy that will advance the US economic agenda while creating jobs. That’s what I truly do believe. But in order to get there, as you very kindly gave us a masterclass in the beginning, we are gonna need a national framework ’cause we see this game of whack-a-mole. Where states are constantly trying to pass, driver-in bills, and we know why, because of certain select special interests are demanding this. And I will say for the audience, there are blog posts, there are AP reports, there are press releases, there’s, there’s a mountain of evidence to back up that statement. But with a shutdown and, and the way that I’m reading the tea leaves now, and I’m the weird guy that watches both sides to see kind of what’s going on. It seems that the sides are. Are getting dug in because of, on the Democrats have to have to show a win to their base and Republicans to some other base have to show a spine. Does this make it harder and harder potentially to get a compromise, or is the coalition that President Trump have different than previous Presidents? ‘Cause it is very, very different. If you look at the, the, the coalition that he’s built, that there, it is an opportunity to push this forward because. As the president says he wants to make America great again. Well, as you and I both know, autonomy is gonna make America great again ’cause it’s gonna create jobs.

Varun Jain: Yeah, I, I don’t think that a shutdown will dramatically change the, the coalition for autonomy, and that’s because these folks have been already been working together for years. Their work has only increased. I also think folks recognize that there’s some political grantsmanship with, any sort of shutdown. So my sense is that won’t actually change the calculus that much on a coalition. I hope I’m right. I hope very much hope I’m right.

Grayson Brulte: we’ve seen this with. Major Bills gi, give an example. The big beautiful bill. The amount of inbound that Congress got from their constituents, either for it or against it, was a pretty large volume. Why have we never seen a letter writing campaign? A call your congressman campaign, say, listen, I need this technology. My mother-in-law can’t drive, but this vehicle can take her there. She can go to the beauty parlor, she can go to the community center. She can go see her friends. She can go to the grocery store and have a life. Why are we not seeing this sort of inbound or are we that it’s, it’s happening? ‘Cause it just doesn’t seem like it’s, it’s bubbling up to the sense of, of attention from a national perspective.

Varun Jain: Yeah, I think that’s a great point, Grayson. My sense is that it’s much easier to how some infrastructure dollars in the building of a bridge or a port or a highway will benefit you and your community than it currently is to see how autonomy will benefit you and your community. But I’ll tell you, it’s autonomous systems are magical. They’re getting better every day. I rode in one years ago, and I was at Nuro, I rode in one a few weeks ago, and you know, I thought Nuro one was very good. I mean, these are just unbelievable. And it’s not, it’s not only robotaxi, it’s not only Middle Mile. The autonomy ecosystem has a ton of differentiation. You see it with Glydways, you see it with Beep, you see it with first and the last mile delivery. You see it in the er, you see it in the water. And so I think there’s just so much in the space that can contribute to help people. That has not been experienced yet. That is the real challenge. But I will say, I think you’re seeing a change. I think you’re seeing a change in public acceptance about autonomous vehicles operating. Here’s, here’s why I think that I’d love to get your, your perspective. You’ll, you know, I think your listeners also know there was an ADS accident recently. It was, it was in Tempe, Arizona. It was horrible. There has not been much reporting about this accident, and the question is why? Why has there not been that much reporting about this? We’ve seen other autonomous or accidents with and companies, and I think this might be a data point that autonomy is here to stay, that people accept it in their lives. It’s just one data point, and I think the industry still has a lot of work to do. I think it’s, I think it’s appealing and I think it really identifies the, the, the promise of autonomous vehicles that folks like them. There’s, I know there’s a lot of demand to try these autonomous vehicles, and I think there will be letter writing campaigns once people see their promise. Oh, you just have to get into one of the autonomous vehicles and try it yourself. And that means there has to be more, testing and deployment in, in places that might not otherwise get it.

Grayson Brulte: You’re right about the experience. Years ago, SAE, you did demo days trying to expose individuals to the technology, which raises the question, do you feel that it’s almost the fear of the unknown where an individual hasn’t experienced this? And then, I’m sorry to say it this way, ’cause that’s happened. They get influenced by the media and, and I say influenced. I have a lot of friends in the, in the media and going back years ago, I said, why are you writing all this negative stuff? And this is, and I got the honest answer and I can’t tell you the outlet and I can’t tell you who, but I will tell you right now on the record for public consumption, he goes AD dollars. I said, what do you mean? He goes, we get 10, 20, 30, sometimes a hundred x traffic when I write this and we make so much money in ad dollars. The publisher says, keep writing. Keep writing that. That’s sad. That’s what’s driving this, and nobody’s talking about, and I’m just saying it here, bluntly, publicly.

Varun Jain: think you’re right. You know, fortunately. Sell. And that’s, that’s something that autonomous vehicles as an industry really, really face. I think that other industries have have succeeded despite those headwinds. Lemme just give an example. You know, when I was at Uber, we would see bad stories all the time about things have happened in in ride share. Well, if you’re doing a million trips a day, I’m sure they’re doing many more now. You’re gonna, on average, have a one in a million accident once a day, and that’s gonna be picked up by the local news. And then you’re gonna have engagement from politicians. You’re gonna have to address it. And what that means is, especially in spaces where there can be acute harms that are easily observed, you have to go on the offensive. You have to really demonstrate the value of the systems. And I actually think they have incredible value. They have value as far as safety. Now everyone talks about 40,000 road deaths a year and reducing that. It’s absolutely right. There are millions of accidents a year, right? Every accident, it’s like you’re not just affecting that one person, you’re affecting everyone else on the road. You’re affecting the caretakers of that person. You’re affecting their kids, you’re affecting their family and friends. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could reduce the number of accidents on the road? Number of road deaths on the road? Autonomy has that promise, and I think it’s been demonstrated some of the safety data. It’s not just that, right? It’s also jobs. People say that. I think that the, the concern is that you’re gonna see, one day you’re gonna wake up and there’ll be all autonomous vehicles and there’ll be just complete job losses. I, I don’t, I think that’s a caricature. The future, I actually think there are, can be more jobs, more better paying, jobs that are demanding in a different way, but they’re not physically demanding. Being a truck driver is extremely demanding. It’s just not easy and it’s very impressive what truck drivers do, but they can be shift in jobs that create an economic movement in the United States. So new jobs and transportation logistics. There are truckers. I have a, a friend, a former FMCSA Chief Counsel should go and talk to truckers. They’d say We wanna be trained in new technologies. This is a new technology. This can be the future of America transportation. We just have to have the right regulatory framework to do it.

Grayson Brulte: You’re right. It, I mean, I’ll give you the. Hollywood analogy, this is what you said reminds me of, and for the audience and autonomy, there’s an entire ecosystem that supports both Hollywood and supports the autonomy economy. There’s, there’s a line in Hollywood above line, below line, and I’ll simplify it, make it very simple. Above the line is the actor. So you have your, your Tom Cruise and everybody says, oh, he’s the actor. Well, in this case, you have your Waymo, your Tesla, your Robotaxis, your Tom Cruise. Below the line are all the individuals that support that to put the Mission Impossible movie on your tv. Well, from autonomy, it’s all the individuals to make sure that your vehicle arrives safely and clean and it’s maintained. So there’s a lot of sim similarities there. And you say, go on offense, and I’m gonna give you one of these. You’re right, we, we have to go on offense. And I love to study history. If you look at one of the most recent successful. I mean it’s complete 180 successful political campaigns of the last three years. Crypto, holy Wowser, you went from a no way. Jose Un, UN under Gary Gensler to a yes, we, the Trump family’s in involved. I mean it could a complete 180. ‘Cause they built a coalition and they won an offense. Why cannot the autonomous vehicle industry say, okay folks, there’s a guide here. Why don’t we try and implement some of the techniques and tactics? That the crypto industry proved because it proved very, very successful for the crypto industry, and it also proved successful for the stock market and for the millions of individuals that have been able to invest in the ETFs. So it’s creating wealth.

Varun Jain: Well, you know, I, I, I think that crypto and autonomy are a little different though. I absolutely appreciate the analogy. What I think is we can build on and include what we’re doing now. I tend to think that we have to do more research to. Really prove out a lot of the good ideas that we have so far about the benefits of autonomy and then we have to to sell it, and we are selling something that has incredible value. That’s why I work on autonomy issues. I think this has the potential to dramatically benefit other folks from a safety perspective, from an economics perspective, a manufacturing perspective, a jobs perspective. Each of those components. You have to dig down and really explain and make the case. I think it’s a little different than crypto sometimes because folks I, I think are uncertain about, we’re uncertain about crypto in the general public, and here I think folks have like some understanding of an autonomous vehicle, but it might be misplaced. They certainly see, because like you’re saying, because of the media’s negative stories, they see some of the really acute harms that can come up from any vehicle. And the end result there is they think, well, I don’t want a computer controlling a vehicle. You know, even if you tell me it’s safe, I wanna be in control. And I think that we have to, we have to counter that instinct because it’s a very real instinct. You know, I, I’ve had it myself from time to time, not about autonomy, but about other things. And the way to counter that is to bring data, bring facts, bring stories that really illustrate the benefits. And I think if you, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just give you one. I was having dinner with the, the GC of a autonomous trucking startup recently, and he was telling me about truckers. He was telling me about how closely they work with truckers to develop autonomy. And part of it is helping train these autonomy systems. These truckers have decades of experience and they just know when something is wrong and you ask a trucker, it’s like, well, why did you disengage there? And trucker’s like, I just felt wrong. I mean, it was slightly more colorful language, but that’s like basically what was said. And that’s like, that’s important because at the end of the day. We are moving jobs, we’re moving jobs to the types of jobs that laws and truckers say that they want. You know, if you don’t have middle mile trucking jobs, there’s still first and last mile delivery jobs. And if middle mile trucking is more efficient, that means that you can grow the economic pie and have more of those first and last mile trucking jobs. You can have more transportation logistics jobs. You could have oversight over trucking operations. There are so many things that this boom can really create.

Grayson Brulte: Yes, it, it really comes down to messaging. If you go back. Three or four years ago, crypto’s bad, crypto’s bad, and you had the institutions trying to block it. You had the the, the B in king scandals. And now we have reports out of Bloomberg this week, Vanguard is going to allow crypto to be held in accounts. So they got over that hurdle and they did a lot of it, in my opinion, because of messaging. And I think that this industry, autonomous vehicle industry does a horrible job as it relates to messaging. So my whole big thing on this is that you have a president in the White House, president Donald J. Trump. That every chance the gentleman gets jobs, jobs, jobs, he’s out there constantly speaking about jobs, about bringing jobs back to America, creating, creating, manufacturing jobs. Why is the industry not pitching the White House on the job creation that both autonomous vehicles and autonomous trucks do? And on the backside of that, why are we not publishing any health data about the, the positive health implications of autonomy? So you mentioned the Middle Mile, the, the long road. And those are some fantastic individuals. The, the, the, the million milers, the 2 million milers, 3 million models, fantastic individuals. But then you have the individuals that, that don’t really like it and then they’re aging out. And then on that you have the diabetes issues. I learned about this. You have the vibration issues in the seed that start leading to all sort of long-term healthcare issues. Well, autonomy solves that, and that helps to reduce healthcare costs. So we’re gonna create jobs from reduced healthcare costs. Why is that messaging not going out there?

Varun Jain: Well, you know, I, I think I’ll disagree with you about, what the industry has done in the past. But what I think we can absolutely say is there’s more work to be done. We, as an industry have to really promote and demonstrate the value. I, I think some of it is because the, the crypto industry, you know, I know it’s, I think it’s a little less fragmented and specialized when you’re talking about that industry versus when you’re talking about autonomy. I think at autonomy there’s just a ton of specialization and there are slightly different interests involved, right? You have, you have, okay, you have like Robotaxis, you have trucking first and last mile. You have platforms, you have software. I just mentioned five off the top of my head, and there are probably 25 more. And so it’s not, it’s not clear to me they always have the same interests. And, and I get it right, if you’re a traditional OEM. Or even if you’re a contract manufacturer, you might not have the, the precisely trust that an AV startup has, and you’re still a big player in the ecosystem. So, so I think the, the potential lack of consistent messaging might be because the industry has slightly different interests. Now, I will say there are, you know, industry groups that really work to bring everybody together, bring everyone to the table, and have a say in what the future of autonomy should be. I would, I would encourage folks, get involved in those groups, help find the areas of compromise so we can speak with one voice as an industry.

Grayson Brulte: They have different interests, but they all have a, a common ome. At the end of the day. Everybody in this industry that, that I know and you know, wants a national autonomous vehicle framework, same way crypto wanted a framework. So at the end of the day, what is it gonna take to get a national framework? What’s gonna win the votes to. To get it over the hurdle? Is it putting every member of Congress in an autonomous vehicle? Is it having the me, indivi constituents go to DC to advocate for it? Is it, is it all the above? What is it gonna take? Because I asked that with the backdrop of if America does not get a national autonomous vehicle framework, America will be at a strategic disadvantage. To China the same way that America’s at a strategic disadvantage to China as it relates to electrification. Outside of Tesla, they control 90 plus percent of the refining of minerals. They control the the shipping lanes, they control the refining. Something has to give here, or unfortunately, I’m gonna say it, history could end up repeating itself.

Varun Jain: Well, look, I, I think you’re, you’re right. I think you’re absolutely right. I don’t think that that Congress is a monolith, and I think that you have to tailor your message to each stakeholder. There are some folks on the hill, and if they see a lot of constituent outreach about an issue that really resonates with them, there are other folks who have long been champions of new technology. I think you have to enlist them as champions inside Congress. I think they need to engage with other Congress people. I think you need former Congress people to engage, and then I think that you actually do have to get a lot of these folks into autonomous vehicles. Getting people into autonomous vehicles is very important because once you’re in there, you realize how amazing an experience it is and how you feel safe. That’s gonna really, really affect. You vote and lemme give you an example there, grace. I was talking to a friend, she’s the former FMCSA Chief Counsel. He was sitting in an autonomous vehicle, light turned screen, not moving. And in her head she’s like, wow, there must be some defect, there must be some issue. Three seconds later, a fire truck full speed goes blazing past her. She did not see it before. She did not hear it before. And if she had been in a conventional vehicle, we know what would’ve happened. And what is amazing is this story at the end of the day, is going to become commonplace because of how advanced these systems are and how much more advanced they will be. And we need to make sure that folks on the hill really understand that story.

Grayson Brulte: Stories are personal. I mean, I think that it has to become personalized and I hope that the gridlock in DC is broken at some point ’cause it benefits the American public and also benefits the American economy if policy for autonomy stays gridlocked and look at other industries throughout history. Going back to the industrial revolution. Do the courts unfortunately end up playing a lar a larger role here in deciding some of the legalities?

Varun Jain: I think a lot of it will depend on how, what individual actors do in the ecosystem, almost to, to a person. When I talk to folks in, in autonomy, they, they think safety is first. They think safety is foundational. So I think they’ll be really reluctant to challenge and it’s the decision, either operationally and then NHTSA, a bring a case for themselves, affirmatively. There are obviously some examples where industry or specific participants just think that an agency has gotten it wrong. I’m thinking about, the, the triangles issue with FMCSA, and that’s, that’s being litigated right now. The other reason I’m not sure the courts will, will be the place is. You need some sort of dispute, and I think this administration has shown that it cares very much about autonomous vehicles. I’m not sure you’re gonna, you’re gonna get that dispute and maybe you’ll have it at the, at the state level in some ways. But I’m not sure that the courts will, will resolve lots of these issues. I think it’s uncertain what will happen. There’s not an autonomous vehicle framework. But that’s why I think it’s just incumbent on everyone to really push as far as you can, ’cause this is the best opportunity, this is the best opportunity I’ve seen in a while and have to take this opportunity.

Grayson Brulte: From a regulatory. Standpoint, I’ll, I’ll make this very simple. There’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. You have the, the city, the city level, the county level, the state level, and then obviously the federal level. You’ve been in-house at Uber and Nuro. How do you balance all of the, the regulatory requirements? Let’s just look at California for example. You have the DMV, the CUPC, the state of California’s like, whoa, and then you’re getting into alphabet soup, which in, you’re in DC you’re very familiar with alphabet soup. How, how, how do you manage all that?

Varun Jain: It is hard. It is hard. I think there are ways you can do it efficiently, and the best companies have an operational excellence, not only on the ground, but in compliance and regulatory as well. And I think the, the first step is really planning. So as you are thinking about what you wanna do in the next year, the next two years, the next three years, regulatory and compliance should not be an afterthought, and it shouldn’t be an afterthought because those are actual blockers to operations. I was advising a client some time ago about, expanding into new markets, and this was a very forward thinking client. They’re like, well, just tell me about all the regulations. Tell me about how I should structure my vehicle to reduce regulatory risks. Well, those are very important questions to ask at the beginning, not just what’s the tam, not just like how much of the market can we penetrate here? Not just how operationally easy it is, but what are the regulatory hurdles, both in terms of the agencies that will be involved in terms of the politicians that are there now and that may be there in the future? And I think really, really thoughtful companies do that because. A little money spent now on that saves a lot of headache later when you don’t have to build a second vehicle just to operate with state. So there’s planning, there’s inclusion of, regulatory and compliance in your business plans. There’s also some engagement with regulators. I think that you have to be able talking to your regulators, you know, at the end of the day, honestly, the truth is regulators are nerds. Regulators are nerds. Just like the folks at all these autonomous vehicle companies. They just wanna nerd down own cool technology. They wanna see the benefits. They just come at it from a slightly different lens where they have a different set of risks and a different set of stakeholders. If you engage with regulators, you become one of their stakeholders. That’s very important to do. It’s very, very important to.

Grayson Brulte: Regulators are, are wonderful people and they care. I think the big disconnect at times is they speak a different language than industry and at times that’s why the policy folks can, if you wanna say, can, can bridge that gap there. But, and you’ve seen this historically, let’s go back 15 years to the early days of autonomy where it’s hire every engineer, hire the best engineer, hire the best engineer. I was like, oh, we gotta hire a lawyer now. Oh. Oh, okay. When does this policy become the, the forefront? Because you have seen, and I’m gonna be polite today, several companies over the last 12 to 16 months make policy blunders. And to me, those blunders could have been an avoided if they staffed up and had a really good policy team that had a lot of influence. How, how do we overcome that? Because some, those blunders not just hurt those individual companies, but hurts the entire industry.

Varun Jain: well, I think that you have to include. Regulatory compliance policy into the process of, of business decision making. Like I, I really think that’s the way you have to develop a muscle where you think, what are the, the regulatory impacts of taking this action. When you cut corners in X place, it might even be fine, but if a regulator figures it out, then that’s a real problem, I think. I think that’s the first part, so making sure that. These folks have a seat at the table as you’re making business decisions, which means early hires, it means early hires for engaging with outside folks to really understand what’s going on and really play a role in shaping the company’s business decisions. And the other thing is, I think you gotta practice, you know, like, like why is it the case that the, the best teams practice the hardest in, in any sport? These guys aren’t just sitting around between games. Like they’re constantly practicing. They’re constantly getting better. The reason is because in game you have one chance. Okay? If there’s a horrible accident, you have one chance to get it right and that the first time you face those that shouldn’t be during the game should be in practice. So you have to do a lot of this practice to make sure your process is certain place, make sure everyone knows what they’re doing to make sure the comms messages are a hundred percent right. So that when there is unfortunately a terrible accident or when someone reaches out or when something happens, you can address it and the next day, all of the work that hundreds of people have spent years and years and years doing doesn’t go down the drain.

Grayson Brulte: Yeah, because without sound policy, you can engineer the world’s best autonomous vehicle or truck, but without the sound policy, you can’t scale it. At the end of the day, that’s what this all comes down to.

Varun Jain: I think that’s right. You can’t scale it. It’s not good for the industry to be unprepared. And it, it’s just, it’s not good for you. I mean, you spend a lifetime getting like a PhD in robotics or like Carnegie Mellon or something, right? And then you spend 10 years working on autonomous systems, on like machine learning. You come to an AV company, hey, you are doing everything you can possibly do. But when you’re thinking of it from a systems perspective, there’s an important aspect of it related to policy and regulatory. You need to make sure you have good folks in this position.

Grayson Brulte: When you started this conversation off, you said 15 months. Looking to the future, do you realistically think that we get an autonomous vehicle framework that includes trucks weighing over 10,001 gross pounds in the next 15 months?

Varun Jain: It’s a big, that’s the tough question, Grayson. That’s a real tough question that. I think there’s, there’s a possibility, but it requires a lot of work from, from folks in the industry continu in, and an explanation of why the thing that we are doing is a thing that is good for America. And I believe in my heart, that’s the only reason I’m doing, you know, I, I am convinced that autonomous vehicles are the future. That they can grow the economic pie, that they can give people good jobs, they can make the roads safer. We need to take that message. We need to tell it to. Every politician will listen, the ones who won’t listen, and we need to talk to other stakeholders, the ecosystem, and really explain why some of their concerns might be unfounded. And if we do all that, then I think we have a real shot.

Grayson Brulte: There’s always possibilities to the industry. Don’t give up. Come together, work on a cohesive messaging campaign. Work on a cohesive strategy because we have an autonomous vehicle framework that includes trucks weighing over 10,001 gross pounds. Lives will be saved. The economy will grow and everyone will win. The future is bright. The future is autonomous. The future is a national, federal autonomous vehicle framework. Varun, thank you so much for coming on the road to Autonomy today.