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Comment by pengaru | Hacker News Reader

Is this really the CA DMV's jurisdiction? Where's the CA DOT? How on earth is the DMV the best positioned agency to take Tesla to task on this egregious issue?

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Because the California DMV determines who gets to drive in California. The CA DMV licenses autonomous vehicles.[1] California was the first state to do this. There's a reasonable licensing system. Vehicle makers can apply for a license to autonomously test drive with a safety driver (easy to get, 50 companies are licensed), testing without a safety driver (harder to get, only 7 companies licensed), and deployment (only Neuro, Cruise, and Waymo have qualified.) Tesla's marketing materials imply that they are qualified to deploy autonomous vehicles. They're not.

[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...

To add to this CA DOT (aka Caltrans) does not regulate motor vehicles.

From https://dot.ca.gov/about-caltrans :

> Caltrans manages more than 50,000 miles of California's highway and freeway lanes, provides inter-city rail services, permits more than 400 public-use airports and special-use hospital heliports, and works with local agencies

Motor vehicles not under their jurisdiction

ah, I assumed since the federal DOT is responsible for things like qualifying street-legal equipment (e.g. DOT-legal headlamp housings, windshields, etc) the CA DOT was in a similar role at the state level. Could have sworn I'd read somewhere CA DOT simply reflects DOT regulations on such matters, but wouldn't the CA DOT still be responsible for enforcement if say Ford was selling new vehicles within CA with non-DOT headlamps?

I would argue that it's because DMV is in charge of car dealerships... But doesn't Tesla not have legal dealerships?

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