Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. by ajay_suresh    

Discussions surrounding autonomous driving have long remained centered on a single question: is it safe, or is it dangerous? However, the recent hearing in the U.S. Senate moved beyond that stage. The question is no longer whether autonomous vehicles should be introduced, but rather who will introduce them faster, more safely, and under more advantageous rules. In this article, Woojin Kim of Hyundai Motor Company traces the contours of that shift. He looks at why the United States is increasingly conscious of China, why it is accelerating efforts to establish a federal framework, and why issues such as privacy, cybersecurity, remote operations, and accessibility are becoming even more important in the process.

By Woojin Kim, Part Leader, Regulatory & Certification Office, Hyundai Motor Company R&D Division
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From Debate to Inevitability

In February, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing titled   Hit the Road, Mac: The Future of Self-Driving Cars.   The hearing was convened against the backdrop of intensifying competition with China over leadership in future mobility technologies, and it was meant to urge the federal government to establish national safety standards while accelerating the growth of self-driving vehicles.
Four experts appeared as witnesses: Lars Moravy, Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla; Mauricio Pena, Chief Safety Officer at Waymo; Jeff Farrah, CEO of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association; and Bryant Walker Smith, Associate Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina.
Hearings on autonomous driving are not unusual in the U.S. Congress. They are typically held to gather views and identify issues in the process of shaping federal regulation. This time, however, the atmosphere felt different. In the past, such hearings tended to revolve around concerns over safety and broader social issues, often producing a clear divide between those who emphasized the benefits of adoption and those who warned of its risks.
This time, by contrast, the hearing proceeded from the premise that the introduction of autonomous vehicles is inevitable. The real question was how the United States could deploy them quickly and safely while maintaining global leadership in the field. At the same time, there was a visible effort to diagnose the problems that might arise along the way and to consider realistic solutions.
That shift was reflected even in the title of the hearing.   Hit the Road, Mac   is a playful take on the famous 1950s jazz song   Hit the Road Jack,   humorously suggesting that the time has come for self-driving cars to take to the road.
Over roughly two and a half hours, the hearing covered a wide range of themes, including the defense of U.S. global leadership, strategies for competing with China, data privacy, cybersecurity, remote operations, and the mobility rights of vulnerable road users.



China in the Room

In recent years, as China  s autonomous driving industry has grown rapidly under the leadership of AI technologies, references to China have become almost routine in official U.S. policy discussions. This hearing was no exception. Concerns related to China surfaced throughout.
In his opening remarks, Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Pena stated that Waymo supports the U.S. Department of Commerce  s restrictions on Chinese connectivity components. Even so, he was repeatedly pressed during the hearing over whether the company was developing autonomous vehicles using Chinese platforms such as Zeekr. Each time, Pena responded that Waymo develops its autonomous driving system in-house and simply uses multiple vehicle platforms, while ensuring that none of them contain prohibited Chinese connectivity components.
Many lawmakers openly asked questions such as: How can the United States secure leadership? What happens if it loses the competition with China? Pena warned that if the absence of a legal framework becomes a structural obstacle, China could end up setting global standards for autonomous driving. Tesla  s Lars Moravy made a similar point, arguing that if the United States fails to lead in regulation and standard-setting, China could seize overall market leadership. With Chinese companies aggressively expanding robotaxi deployment, there was a shared sense that unless Congress takes action, innovation and leadership could shift to China.







The Regulatory Gap

Regulatory reform emerged as one of the most urgent themes. Senator Ted Cruz, in his opening remarks, argued that the current situation, in which only state-level rules exist while a clear federal framework remains absent, is deeply harmful to U.S. leadership. Both Tesla and Waymo likewise stressed that the United States urgently needs a unified legal and regulatory system if it hopes to remain the global leader in autonomous driving.
Moravy pointed out that current U.S. federal motor vehicle regulations were not written with technologies such as autonomous driving or over-the-air software updates in mind. He argued that, just as the Federal Aviation Administration helped accelerate aviation innovation after 1958, the U.S. Department of Transportation should be able to establish and manage national standards for autonomous driving. At the time, the United States was facing a sharp increase in both military and civilian aircraft, alongside the arrival of jet airliners, while aviation safety rules were fragmented across jurisdictions and increasingly outdated. The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 centralized federal authority, allowing certification, operational rules, air traffic control, and pilot qualifications to be managed under a single national standard.
Pena, for his part, described autonomous driving as a vast industry on the scale of aerospace and argued that the contest is no longer company versus company, but country versus country. As Chinese autonomous driving firms expand rapidly with strong state support and increasingly global ambitions, he said, the United States risks handing over global standard-setting authority unless it puts a national legal framework in place. Waymo argued that Congress now has a once-in-a-generation opportunity and urged lawmakers to prioritize four areas: establishing a nationwide safety framework, creating a unified national safety data reporting system, modernizing FMVSS, and advancing the AV Accessibility Act.



Privacy Under the Microscope

Data privacy was another major focus of the hearing. It is already a matter of high public concern, especially since the 2024 controversy in which GM customer driving data was shared with insurers, reportedly causing insurance premiums to rise without customers even realizing why. Since then, Congress has been watching closely to see how automakers collect, manage, and protect customer data.
Autonomous vehicles are equipped with numerous external cameras as well as internal cameras used to monitor the cabin. Because these systems continuously collect information from both inside and outside the vehicle, privacy concerns can arise at any moment. During the hearing, one senator asked detailed questions about how many cameras are installed on Waymo robotaxis, how the resulting data is managed, and what internal policies govern its use. The same line of questioning was directed at Tesla  s Lars Moravy. Both companies offered only general answers, but the exchange clearly showed that data privacy will remain an area of intense scrutiny for autonomous vehicles.



Cybersecurity Without a Rulebook

Cybersecurity is one of the most important issues that must be addressed if self-driving vehicles are to be commercialized safely. Yet, as with autonomous driving itself, there is still no unified federal regulation in the United States. Instead, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has largely relied on guidance documents that call for voluntary compliance by manufacturers.
When lawmakers asked Tesla and Waymo about their cybersecurity preparedness, both witnesses replied with confidence. Moravy in particular emphasized that Tesla operates a bug bounty program under which security researchers who discover and formally report vulnerabilities can receive financial rewards. He presented this as evidence of Tesla  s seriousness in the field and noted that Tesla is the only automaker currently running such a program.
When questions were raised about cybersecurity risks linked to the use of Chinese Zeekr vehicles in robotaxi development, Pena responded that there is no external interface through which such an attack could occur and that Waymo has never experienced such an incident.



Remote Operations and the Waymo Question

One of the most striking moments of the hearing came during the discussion of remote operations. Senator Ed Markey, a veteran lawmaker with a deep understanding of the automotive sector, directed a series of sharp questions at Waymo. It became one of the defining scenes of the session.
The issue had resurfaced after a major blackout in San Francisco last year left Waymo robotaxis immobilized. At the time, there were still no clear legal rules governing remote operations, and the companies themselves had disclosed few concrete details.
Markey pressed the matter further, asking whether Waymo actually employs remote operators, what their qualifications are, and where they are located. As the exchange unfolded, it became clear that some of Waymo  s remote operators are based overseas, including in the Philippines. Markey argued that allowing overseas personnel to remotely access robotaxis operating in the United States raises serious safety concerns. He also criticized the fact that jobs displaced by the commercialization of robotaxis were not being replaced in the United States, but instead created abroad.







After the Hearing

The criticism did not end when the hearing was over. Philip Koopman of Carnegie Mellon University, who studies autonomous driving, pointed out that Waymo had failed to provide sufficiently clear information about its remote operators during the hearing and even called for the press to investigate further. Congressman Buddy Carter of Georgia later sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urging an investigation into Waymo  s overseas remote operations. He argued that allowing vehicles on U.S. roads to be influenced by personnel outside U.S. jurisdiction, and by people who may not fully understand American road conditions or regulations, presents a serious safety issue.
Shortly after the hearing, Waymo Vice President Ryan McNamara submitted a roughly ten-page letter to Senator Markey  s office. In that letter, Waymo stated that it employs about 70 remote operators, working out of centers in the Philippines, Arizona, and Michigan. It also said that all personnel responsible for complex and urgent tasks are based in the United States.
Waymo further explained that its remote operators do not directly control the vehicle and do not monitor it continuously. Instead, they respond only when the robotaxi requests specific information, and even then, the vehicle may choose whether to follow the guidance or ignore it. Because the system does not rely on direct control, Waymo argued that it is less sensitive to latency issues. Even so, the company disclosed that average latency from the Philippine remote center is around 250 milliseconds, which it compared to the time range of a human blink.
Thanks to Markey  s persistence, the basic contours of Waymo  s remote operations, long kept largely out of public view, began to emerge. Looking ahead, the remote operations practices of Waymo and other robotaxi companies are likely to remain under close watch from both regulators and the media.
Until autonomous driving software becomes capable of handling every scenario on its own, some degree of remote support will remain necessary to compensate for current limitations. From a cost perspective, it is understandable that companies would look to lower-cost overseas labor markets. Yet unlike other industries, where the use of overseas teleoperators in places such as India has already become common, the atmosphere in autonomous driving is very different. Because the technology is directly tied to public safety and, increasingly, to national competitiveness, the use of overseas remote operation personnel is unlikely to be easily accepted.



Accessibility as an Unfinished Responsibility

Accessibility for vulnerable users was another topic taken up at the hearing. The AV Accessibility Act, introduced last July, seeks to ensure that people with disabilities are not disadvantaged in using robotaxi services. At the heart of the proposal is a requirement that wheelchair-accessible robotaxis be made available.
Even today, conventional ride-hailing services do offer some wheelchair-accessible vehicles, but the supply remains far below demand, leaving disabled users with significant inconvenience. During the hearing, both Waymo and Tesla were asked about the current status of wheelchair-accessible vehicles in their fleets. Yet neither side was able to provide a satisfactory answer. Pena could not state what share of Waymo  s robotaxis are wheelchair accessible, while Moravy acknowledged that Tesla  s robotaxis operating in Austin are not equipped to carry wheelchair users. The exchange underscored how much work remains to be done on accessibility in the robotaxi era.







Safety Is Not a Moment, but a Commitment

Bryant Walker Smith was the only witness at the hearing who was not affiliated with a specific company. While the other witnesses emphasized the achievements and promise of the organizations they represented, Smith spoke from a broader societal perspective.
He warned against the arrogance of believing that autonomous driving will solve every safety problem. The history of technology and policy, he said, is always a process of replacing old problems with new ones, and the goal is simply to ensure that the new problems are less harmful than the old. Engineers worthy of respect, he argued, must remain humble and be willing to listen to governments and other researchers.
Smith also said that the best way to judge the safety of autonomous vehicles is to judge the reliability of the companies that develop and operate them. In his view, the true driver of an autonomous vehicle is the company itself. A trustworthy company must be able to explain its safety philosophy, show why it is reasonably safe, and do so in a way that the public can believe. It must not hide problems, and it must respond to harm promptly and openly rather than communicating vaguely that problems existed but have been resolved.
He concluded with one of the most memorable lines of the hearing: safety is not a wedding, but a marriage. In other words, safety is not something that ends with a one-time test, certification, or approval. It is a continuing obligation that must be upheld as long as the vehicle remains on the road. Smith also called for more professional capacity within the federal government to oversee that continuing responsibility. At the same time, he said, while creating unified federal rules is important, the role of state governments should continue. In the absence of a complete federal framework, states have already accumulated valuable expertise through their own efforts to support safe autonomous vehicle operations, and that experience should not be discarded.



Conclusion: A Race to Define the Rules

This hearing carried a gravity that felt different from the many that came before it. It reflected a United States that is now seriously confronting what both government and industry must do if it wants to avoid losing global leadership in autonomous driving to China.
At the same time, the hearing reaffirmed a principle that remains unchanged: the highest priority of autonomous driving is safety. And if the industry is to move forward, companies will have to address that responsibility with far greater transparency.

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