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AV STEP is no longer a pending proposal. NHTSA withdrew its proposed ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program on June 26, 2026. The voluntary program would have created a federal framework for reviewing and collecting information about certain automated-driving-system (ADS) vehicles, but the agency concluded it was unlikely to attract enough participants to provide useful oversight. Its withdrawal ended this rulemaking—not NHTSA’s broader work on automated vehicles.
What was AV STEP?
AV STEP stood for the ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program. In a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed adding a voluntary program to 49 CFR Part 597. The proposal, docket NHTSA-2024-0100, was intended to give the agency more visibility into ADS-equipped vehicles operating, or proposed to operate, on U.S. public roads.
NHTSA framed AV STEP as a way to gather operational and safety-process information, improve transparency, and support oversight as the technology and evidence base developed. It was not a federal certificate declaring a vehicle safe, a blanket authorization to deploy autonomous vehicles, or a replacement for existing safety rules and enforcement. The proposal would have supplemented the agency’s other authorities and processes.
The NPRM was signed on December 19, 2024, announced the following day, and published January 15, 2025, at 90 FR 4130. The comment period closed March 17, 2025, after NHTSA received 37 comments.
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The gap NHTSA was trying to address
Many Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) were written around vehicles with human drivers and conventional controls. An ADS is designed to perform the complete driving task within its operating design domain—the conditions in which it is intended to function—so some existing requirements and assumptions do not map neatly onto vehicles designed without a human driver or manual controls.
That does not mean an automated vehicle is automatically exempt from FMVSS, or that every vehicle with driver-assistance features is an ADS vehicle. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) generally assist a human driver, who remains responsible for driving. An ADS is designed to carry out the driving task within its defined operating domain. The distinction matters for both safety analysis and regulation.
NHTSA’s proposal treated better information as part of the problem: the agency said it needed more data, methods, and metrics to develop future ADS safety-performance standards. AV STEP was conceived as an interim way to collect information while also offering a more structured route for some vehicles seeking federal exemptions. State and local rules governing matters such as operating permits, insurance, traffic enforcement, and deployment locations would still have applied.
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How the proposed program would have worked
Participation would have been voluntary for eligible entities, including vehicle manufacturers, ADS developers, fleet operators, and system integrators. Eligible vehicles could include those compliant with applicable FMVSS as well as vehicles needing certain federal exemptions. A vehicle modified by an ADS retrofit could also raise a separate “make inoperative” issue if the modification affected compliance with a safety standard.
Voluntary did not mean obligation-free: an entity admitted to the program would have had to meet its participation terms, reporting duties, and disclosure conditions. The proposal described two participation levels, Step 1 and Step 2. They were not simply labels for “less autonomous” and “more autonomous.” The distinction centered in significant part on the ADS operating arrangement and whether fallback personnel were relied upon. Fallback personnel are people designated to respond when the ADS cannot continue safely; their role should not be confused with the mere presence of any human occupant.
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The NPRM set out different eligibility and operating conditions for the two steps. Because the proposed requirements turned on the particular operational arrangement, the categories should be read from the rule text rather than reduced to a shorthand autonomy ranking. The proposal contemplated applications from vehicles operating with fallback personnel as well as arrangements without them, with requirements tied to the selected step and the vehicle’s circumstances.
Applications, assessment, and reporting
An application would have included information about the vehicle and equipment, ADS architecture and operation, intended operating domain, safety processes, and safety-case materials. Applicants would also have addressed relevant industry-standard conformance, supervision and fallback arrangements, and exemption matters where applicable. The proposal contemplated an independent third-party assessment of specified safety-process and safety-case elements. This was not simply a conventional vehicle crash test or a guarantee of real-world safety.
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These proposed duties were distinct from crash reporting under NHTSA’s Standing General Order. AV STEP reporting would have applied to program participants under the proposed program; the Standing General Order is a separate reporting mechanism. Neither should be confused with a broad public release of all vehicle or company data.
AV STEP and federal exemptions
FMVSS compliance and ADS operational safety are related but different questions. A vehicle may use an ADS and still comply with applicable FMVSS. A vehicle that does not comply with a standard may need an exemption under federal law, while a modification that makes safety equipment or compliance inoperative can raise another exemption issue. AV STEP proposed processes associated with certain exemptions and possible participation conditions; it did not erase those distinctions.
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Nor would participation have settled every legal question about deployment. Federal vehicle-safety requirements, NHTSA enforcement, federal exemption authority, and state and local operating rules occupy different roles. AV STEP would not have legalized autonomous vehicles nationwide or displaced local requirements.
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Why supporters saw value—and why critics objected
The affirmative case was that a national framework could give NHTSA more consistent visibility into ADS operations than scattered voluntary disclosures, create a structured source of operational data, and let the public see selected information. Independent assessment of safety processes could help test whether a developer’s claims and procedures were documented and aligned with relevant standards. In principle, shared evidence could inform future performance standards and help regulators and researchers learn across deployments.
The objections exposed a basic design tension. For companies, application preparation, independent assessment, reporting, and public disclosure could be burdensome, while the practical benefit—especially any clearer path to exemptions or regulatory certainty—might not justify the cost. Unclear requirements could also make it difficult to plan compliance. A participant could incur scrutiny and expense without knowing that the process would accelerate deployment.
Safety-focused stakeholders raised the opposite concern: a voluntary program could leave out companies or operations for which oversight mattered most. If participation were limited, NHTSA might see an incomplete slice of the market; a review framework would also not amount to mandatory minimum safety-performance standards. Public disclosure, even when useful, might not provide enough information for outsiders to assess safety independently.
The resulting participation paradox was central: requirements strong enough to produce meaningful information and oversight could deter applicants, while a lighter program might attract participants but deliver too little evidence or accountability. The withdrawal notice records both the concern about limited industry interest in a stringent voluntary program and doubts among some stakeholders that voluntary participation could provide adequate oversight.
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Why NHTSA withdrew the proposal
On June 26, 2026, NHTSA formally withdrew the AV STEP rulemaking. The agency concluded that the proposed voluntary program risked attracting too few participants to support meaningful oversight. It also said that several AV STEP objectives—particularly improvements to exemption processes—were being pursued through separate Automated Vehicle Framework initiatives. The official withdrawal notice explains the agency’s reasoning and is the source for the current status: Federal Register withdrawal notice.
The withdrawal means the NPRM was not finalized and the proposed Part 597 program did not become an operative AV STEP system. It does not mean NHTSA concluded ADS oversight was unnecessary, or that the underlying questions about vehicle standards, operational data, crashes, and exemptions were resolved.
What comes after AV STEP?
There is no single replacement program called AV STEP. Rather, related policy functions are being pursued through separate mechanisms. NHTSA’s Automated Vehicle Framework includes work to modernize FMVSS for ADS-equipped vehicles without manual controls, streamline exemption processes, address existing ADS operations, and revise crash-reporting requirements. Other relevant mechanisms include existing exemption pathways, Standing General Order reporting, and NHTSA’s enforcement and oversight authorities.
NHTSA announced rulemakings to modernize safety standards for ADS vehicles without manual controls on September 4, 2025. That work is distinct from the withdrawn AV STEP NPRM. The agency’s policy direction has shifted toward a set of rulemakings and existing oversight tools, not a one-for-one substitute with AV STEP’s proposed combination of application review, assessment, ongoing reporting, and public disclosure.
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What the withdrawal means for different stakeholders
- ADS developers and automakers: AV STEP no longer offers a proposed participation path or its associated conditions. Companies still need to assess applicable FMVSS, exemption requirements, crash-reporting duties, and state or local operating rules.
- Fleet operators and system integrators: The withdrawal removes this proposed national framework, but does not remove obligations that may arise under other federal, state, or local requirements.
- Safety assessors and researchers: The proposal’s independent review and data-collection model did not become a standing program. Researchers should distinguish AV STEP’s proposed disclosures from information available under other reporting systems.
- Public agencies and communities: Local deployment decisions remain shaped by state and local authority as well as federal vehicle-safety rules. AV STEP would not have replaced those roles.
- Investors, insurers, and the public: The withdrawal is not evidence that ADS risks have been settled. It changes the regulatory vehicle through which some oversight goals are pursued, and makes it important to track the separate framework, standards, exemption, and reporting actions.
AV STEP’s significance lies in the problem it tried to solve and the difficulty of its design: a voluntary program was expected to attract industry while delivering enough scrutiny and information to serve the public. NHTSA ultimately withdrew that proposal and shifted emphasis to other initiatives. The specific rulemaking is over; federal oversight of automated vehicles is not.
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