Tesla up more than 9% after Trump administration relaxes self-driving regulations

Tesla’s big bet on the Trump administration looks like it’s paying off both for Tesla’s autonomous future and its stock, which is up nearly 10% today. Yesterday the US Department of Transportation announced a national framework for government self-driving cars to help speed up their development.

“This Administration understands that we’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” US Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy said in a press releasee. “As part of DOT’s innovation agenda, our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard that spurs innovation and prioritizes safety.”

To do so, American-built autonomous vehicles will be able to be exempted from certain federal safety rules for research and demonstration purposes, something previously available only to some foreign vehicles, and the department will streamline the reporting of safety incidents for those vehicles.

As Musk has noted, getting regulatory approval state by state or even county by county can slow down the adoption of autonomous vehicles.

“It’s incredibly painful to do it state by state for 50 states,” Musk said on an earnings call last fall regarding the country’s patchwork of regulation on autonomous vehicle approval. “There should be a national approval process for autonomy.”

More recently on the company’s latest earnings call this week, Musk said he expects the company’s robotaxi service to launch this year in Austin, and by the second half of next year there will be “millions of Teslas operating fully autonomously” around the country.

Of course, these moves by the DOT could also help Tesla’s autonomous competitors, like Google-parent-owned Waymo, which currently has a huge head start over Tesla in the autonomous ride-sharing space.