Tesla could benefit the most from new rules on reporting of self-driving car crashes

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Updated 27 April 2025
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Tesla could benefit the most from new rules on reporting of self-driving car crashes

Tesla could benefit the most from new rules on reporting of self-driving car crashes
  • Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk had complained the old reporting rules cast his company in a bad light
  • Critics said the new rules is "a win for Tesla, a loss for Waymo,” Tesla's rival which is not covered by the exemptions

NEW YORK: Rule changes announced by the Trump administration this week could allow automakers to report fewer crashes involving self-driving cars, with Tesla potentially emerging as the main beneficiary.
The Transportation Department announced Thursday that it will no longer require automakers to report certain kinds of non-fatal crashes — but the exception will apply only to partial self-driving vehicles using so-called Level 2 systems, the kind Tesla deploys. Tesla CEO Elon Musk had complained the old reporting rules cast his company in a bad light.
If Tesla and other automakers are required to report fewer crashes into a national database, that could make it more difficult for regulators to catch equipment defects and for the public to access information about a company’s overall safety, auto industry analysts say. It will also allow Tesla to trumpet a cleaner record to sell more cars.
“This will significantly reduce the number of crashes reported by Tesla,” said auto analyst Sam Abuelsamid at Telemetry Insight. Added Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, noting that Tesla rival Waymo won’t get an exception, “This is a win for Tesla, a loss for Waymo.”
Tesla stock soared nearly 10 percent Friday on the rule changes. Wall Street analysts, and Musk critics, have said that Musk’s role as an adviser to President Donald Trump could put Tesla in position to benefit from any changes to regulations involving self-driving cars.
Other car makers such as Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru and BMW make vehicles with Level 2 systems that help keep cars in lanes, change speed or brake automatically, but Tesla accounts for the vast majority on the road. Vehicles used by Waymo and others with systems that completely take over for the driver, called Automated Driving Systems, will not benefit from the change.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which enforces vehicle safety standards, said the new rules don’t favor one type of self-driving system over another, and that raft of changes it announced will help all self-driving automakers.
“No ADS company is hurt by these changes,” the agency said in statement to The Associated Press, using the acronym for Automatic Driving System. It added that the changes also make sense because “with ADS, no driver is present meaning stronger safety protocols are needed.”
Waymo declined to comment for this story. The AP reached out to Tesla but did not receive a reply.
Under the change, any Level 2 crash that is so bad it needs a tow truck to come will no longer be required to be reported if it doesn’t result in death or injury or air-bag deployment. But if a tow truck is called for crashes of vehicles using ADS, it has to be reported.
The vast majority of partial self-driving vehicle crashes reported under the old NHTSA rules involved Teslas — more than 800 of a total 1,040 crashes in the past 12 months, according to an AP review of the data. It’s unclear how many of those Tesla crashes required the vehicles to be towed, because a column requesting that information in the database is mostly blank.
The NHTSA said after the story was published that only 8 percent of total reported crashes under the old criteria were cases in which partial self-driving vehicles had to be towed away and there was no other qualifying crash-reporting factor involved. It is not clear about cases where tow-away information wasn’t provided.
The relaxed crash rule was part of several changes described by the Transportation Department as a way to “streamline” paperwork and allow US companies to better compete with the China in the race to make self-driving vehicles. The department said it would also move toward national self-driving regulations to replace a confusing patchwork of state rules.
“We’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday. “Our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard.”
Traffic safety watchdogs had feared that the Trump administration would eliminate the NHTSA reporting requirement completely.
The package of changes came days after Musk confirmed on a conference call with Tesla investors that the electric vehicle maker will begin a rollout of self-driving Tesla taxis in Austin, Texas, in June. Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, already has cybercabs available in that city and several others.
Musk has argued that the previous reporting requirements were unfair since Tesla vehicles all use its partial self-driving systems and therefore log more miles than any other automaker with such technology. He says that his cars are far safer than most and save lives.
Tesla sales have plunged in recent month amid a backlash against Musk’s backing of far-right politicians in Europe and his work in the US as head of Trump’s government cost-cutting group. The company has pinned its future on complete automation of its cars, but it is facing stiff competition now from rivals, especially China automaker BYD.


India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast

India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast
Updated 20 sec ago
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India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast

India rushes to contain oil spill as vessel sinks off Kerala coast
  • The vessel was carrying 640 containers, including 13 with ‘hazardous cargo’ and 12 with calcium carbide, coast guard says
  • The Kerala coast has been put on high alert, with local coastal authorities instructed not to touch or go near the containers

KOCHI/BENGALURU: Authorities in the southern Indian state of Kerala were scrambling to contain an oil spill on Monday after a container vessel sank, leaking fuel into the Arabian Sea and releasing 100 cargo containers into the water.

The Liberia-flagged MSC ELSA3 ship was traveling from Vizhinjam on India’s southern tip to Kochi when it capsized about 38 nautical miles off Kerala on Saturday, officials said, adding that all 24 crew members had been rescued.

The entire ship has since been “submerged,” the Kerala chief minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday without elaborating on the cause of the incident.

“The Coast Guard is taking steps to block the oil with two ships. A Dornier aircraft is also being used to spray oil-destroying powder on the oil slick,” the statement said.

The vessel was carrying 640 containers, including 13 with “hazardous cargo” and 12 with calcium carbide, the Indian coast guard said, without disclosing the contents of the containers that fell into the sea.

Cyprus-based MSC Shipmanagement, which owns the vessel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Kerala coast has been put on high alert, with local coastal bodies instructed not to touch or go near the containers — some of which began washing up on beaches on Monday — and fishermen advised not to venture into the sea.

Authorities in the state’s Kollam region have encouraged people living nearby to move to safer places.

Accidental oil spills in the ocean can have far-reaching effects, putting marine ecosystems to the local fishing industry at risk.

The collision of a BW LPG vessel and a local ship carrying heavy fuel oil caused a similar oil spill in 2017 near the southern city of Chennai, which harmed aquatic life and affected the livelihood of thousands of fishermen. 


France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam

Updated 2 min 5 sec ago
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France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam

France’s Macron calls for world order ‘based on law’ in Vietnam
HANOI: France’s Emmanuel Macron called in Vietnam on Monday for the preservation of a world order “based on law,” as he started a tour of Southeast Asia, a region caught up in the confrontation between the United States and China.
During a press statement alongside his Vietnamese counterpart Luong Cuong in Hanoi, Macron said a rules-based order was necessary at “a time of both great imbalance and a return to power-driven rhetoric and intimidation.”
The president presented France as a reliable alternative for Vietnam, caught between Washington, which is threatening to impose enormous levies on its exports to the United States, and Beijing, an important trade partner with which it is also embroiled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
After his arrival in Hanoi late Sunday, the first stop of a six-day trip that will take in Indonesia and Singapore, Macron emphasized a shared vision with Vietnam, a country of 100 million people experiencing stellar growth.
On Monday, around a dozen agreements were signed between the two countries, including in the field of nuclear power, which Hanoi is keen to develop as it seeks to meet soaring energy demands.
Budget airline Vietjet also announced an order for 20 widebody Airbus A330-900 planes, doubling its purchases of the model from the aviation giant in a deal worth an estimated $8 billion.
“It is truly a new page being written between our two countries... a desire to write an even more ambitious page of the relationship between Vietnam and France, between ASEAN and the European Union,” Macron said.
After paying tribute at a Hanoi war memorial to those who fought against French colonial occupation, Macron met his counterpart Cuong.
The president later had lunch with Communist Party General Secretary To Lam at the capital’s star attraction, the Temple of Literature.
Lam is considered the most powerful leader in Vietnam, a one-party state which tolerates no dissent and moves quickly to suppress any criticism.
Ahead of Macron’s first official visit to the country, Human Rights Watch pressed him to voice concerns about “the Vietnamese government’s worsening rights record.”
Vietnam has more than 170 political prisoners who have been charged and convicted under “draconian laws” that criminalize free expression and peaceful activism for human rights and democracy, HRW said.
A public appeal would be out of character for the French president, who regularly says he prefers to raise sensitive issues behind closed doors.


Macron hopes to sell Hanoi his offer of a “third way” between Washington and Beijing.
“Vietnam is really on the front line of all the tensions that are growing in the South China Sea,” a senior French diplomatic official told AFP.
Hanoi shares Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness in the contested waterway, but it has close economic ties with its giant neighbor.
Vietnam has also been threatened with a hefty 46 percent tariff by US President Donald Trump as part of his global trade blitz.
Macron’s “Indo-Pacific strategy” — which proposes a third way to the countries of the region — has gained new relevance due to Trump’s trade war, according to the aide.
He said the president was “defending the idea of international trade rules, we don’t want a jungle where the law of the strongest prevails.”
Vietnam has been careful to follow its own balancing act between China and the United States.
It has adopted a “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers.
fff-ah-aph/slb/mtp

Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation

Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation
Updated 22 min 41 sec ago
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Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation

Trump’s immigration crackdown unnerves Cuban exiles long shielded from deportation
  • US President Donald Trump intends to deport recent arrivals from Cuba back to their country
  • Many Cubans feel betrayed by the decision after supporting President Trump during his election

MIAMI: Immigration officials said Tomás Hernández worked in high-level posts for Cuba’s foreign intelligence agency for decades before migrating to the United States to pursue the American dream.
The 71-year-old was detained by federal agents outside his Miami-area home in March and accused of hiding his ties to Cuba’s Communist Party when he obtained permanent residency.
Cuban-Americans in South Florida have long clamored for a firmer hand with Havana and the recent apprehensions of Hernández and several other former Cuban officials for deportation have been extremely popular among the politically powerful exile community.
“It’s a political gift to Cuban-American hard-liners,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a Latin American expert at Florida International University. But many Cubans fear they could be next on Trump’s list, he said, and “some in the community see it as a betrayal.”
Some pleased among Trump fans, others worried
While President Donald Trump’s mass deportation pledge has frightened migrants from many nations, it has come as something of a shock to the 2.4 million Cuban-Americans, who strongly backed the Republican twice and have long enjoyed a place of privilege in the US immigration system.
Amid record arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island, Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans. Many have been detained ahead of possible deportation.
Among those facing deportation is a pro-Trump Cuban rapper behind a hit song “Patria y Vida” — “Homeland and Life” — that became the unofficial anthem of anti-communist protests on the island in 2021 and drew praise from the likes of then Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State. Eliéxer Márquez, who raps under the name El Funky, said he received notice this month that he had 30 days to leave the US
Thanks to Cold War laws aimed at removing Fidel Castro, Cuban migrants for many decades enjoyed almost automatic refugee status in the US and could obtain green cards a year after entry, unlike migrants from virtually every other country.
Support for Trump among likely Cuban-American voters in Miami was at an all-time high on the eve of last year’s election, according to a poll by Florida International University, which has been tracking the Cuban-American community since 1991. Trump rarely mentions Cubans in his attacks on migrant targets including Venezuelans and Haitians. That has given many Cubans hope that they will remain immune to immigration enforcement actions.
Politics of a crackdown
Democrats, meanwhile, have been trying to turn the immigration crackdown to their advantage. In April, grassroots groups erected two giant billboards on Miami highways calling Rubio and Republican Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez “traitors” to the Cuban-American community for failing to protect tens of thousands of migrants from Trump’s immigration policies.
The arrest of former Cuban state agents is one way to bolster Trump allies, Gamarra said.
In March, Giménez sent Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a letter with the names of 108 people he said were former Cuban state agents or Communist Party officials living unlawfully in the US
“It is imperative that the Department of Homeland Security enforce existing US laws to identify, deport and repatriate these individuals who pose a direct threat to our national security, the integrity of our immigration system and the safety of Cuban exiles and American citizens alike,” Giménez wrote, adding that the US remains a “beacon of hope and freedom for those escaping tyranny.”
A mission to topple the government
Giménez’s target list was compiled by Luis Dominguez, who left Cuba in 1971 and has made it his mission to topple Cuba’s government. In 2009, when the Internet was still a novelty in Cuba, Dominguez said he posed as a 27-year-old female sports journalist from Colombia to lure Castro’s son Antonio into an online romance.
“Some people dream with making money, or with growing old and going on vacation,” said Dominguez, who lives in Connecticut. “I dream with seeing my country free.”
With support from the right-wing Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba, he started combing social media and relying on a well-oiled network of anti-socialist sources, inside Cuba and outside the country, to dox officials allegedly behind human rights abuses and violations of democratic norms. To date, his website, Represores Cubanos — Cuban Repressors — has identified more than 1,200 such state agents, some 150 in the United States.
“They’re chasing the American dream, but previously they condemned it while pursuing the Cuban dream,” Dominguez said. “It’s the typical double life of any Communist regime. When they were in power they criticized anything about the US But now that they’re here, they love it.”
Dominguez, 62, said he regularly shares his findings with federal law enforcement but a spokesman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t comment on the agency’s relationship with the activist.
An elite spy department
Enrique Garcia, a former colleague, said he studied with Hernández in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s. Upon their return, Hernández was sent to work in the spy agency’s elite “North America” department, said Garcia.
Garcia, who defected to the US in the 1990s and has devoted himself to helping American spy catchers unmask Cuban agents, said one-time Cuban agents have infiltrated the current migration wave while hiding their past and even current loyalties to the Cuban government.
“You can’t be on both sides at the same time,” he said.
It’s not known when Hernández entered the US and why. US immigration law generally bars people who’ve belonged to Communist parties. Anyone caught lying on their green card application can be deported or prosecuted.
But removing Cubans who are no longer welcome in the US could prove challenging.
The Trump administration sends a single 60-passenger plane to Cuba every month as part of its deportation drive, unchanged from the past year’s average, according to Witness at the Border, which tracks removal flights. At that rate, it would take almost 700 years to send back the estimated 500,000 Cubans who arrived during the Biden administration and now lack protected status.
Crackdown on loyal fans
At Versailles Restaurant, the epicenter of Miami’s Little Havana, few among its anti-Communist clientele seemed poised to turn on Trump, who visited the iconic cafe twice during the recent presidential campaign. One regular retiree, 83-year-old Rafael Nieto, even wore a giant Trump 2024 hat and pin.
Most of the aging exiles applauded Trump’s migration crackdown overhaul but there were a few cracks in the GOP armor. As the late afternoon banter switched between talk of CIA plots to assassinate Castro and President John F. Kennedy’s failure to provide air cover during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, one retiree stood up and quietly stepped away from his friends.
“People are trembling,” Tony Freitas, who came to the US from Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, said in a hushed voice. “For any little thing, you could be deported.”


Uganda’s military says it has severed ties with Germany over ‘subversive activities’ by ambassador

Uganda’s military says it has severed ties with Germany over ‘subversive activities’ by ambassador
Updated 59 min 22 sec ago
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Uganda’s military says it has severed ties with Germany over ‘subversive activities’ by ambassador

Uganda’s military says it has severed ties with Germany over ‘subversive activities’ by ambassador

NAIROBI: Uganda’s military has severed all military cooperation with Germany after it accused Berlin’s ambassador to Kampala of involvement in “subversive activities” in the East African country, its spokesperson said.
“The Uganda People’s Defense Forces has with immediate effect suspended all ongoing defense and military cooperation activities with the Federal Republic of Germany,” UPDF spokesperson Chris Magezi said in a statement posted on X platform on Sunday.
The decision was “in response to credible intelligence reports that the current German Ambassador to Uganda His Excellency Mathias Schauer is actively engaged in subversive activities in the country,” Magezi said.
He did not give details of those activities or details of any existing military cooperation between Uganda and Germany.
Germany’s embassy in Kampala did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Uganda has its troops in the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, AUSSOM, which is partly funded by the European Union, of which Germany is a member.
In a post on the X platform on Sunday, Uganda’s military chief Muhoozi Kainerugaba said the military was having problems with Schauer as a person.
“It has to do with him as a person. He is wholly unqualified to be in Uganda. It has nothing to do with the great German people,” said Kainerugaba.
The spokesperson for Uganda’s ministry of foreign affairs could not be reached for comment as her phone was switched off.
Kainerugaba, the son of President Yoweri Museveni and widely seen as heir apparent, is widely known for his inflammatory posts on social media which have included threats to Western diplomats in Kampala.
This month he warned the EU was “playing with fire” after a group of EU ambassadors met officials from Uganda’s largest opposition party including its leader, pop star-turned-politician, Bobi Wine.


King Charles to open Canada parliament tasked with countering Trump

King Charles to open Canada parliament tasked with countering Trump
Updated 26 May 2025
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King Charles to open Canada parliament tasked with countering Trump

King Charles to open Canada parliament tasked with countering Trump
  • King Charles is set to open Canada's parliament as part of a pushback against American President Donald Trump's annexation threats
  • The trip is King Charles's first to Canada since his coronation

OTTOWA: King Charles III was set to land in Ottawa Monday for a historic visit to open Canada’s parliament, a brief trip seen as part of the pushback against US President Donald Trump’s annexation threats.
The 76-year-old monarch, who is also Canada’s head of state as part of the Commonwealth, was invited by Prime Minister Mark Carney to deliver the throne speech, an address that outlines the government’s priorities.
The speech is typically given by the British monarch’s representative in Canada, the governor general.
Queen Elizabeth II, the king’s late mother, delivered a throne speech in Canada just twice during her long reign, in 1957 and 1977.
Charles, making his first visit to Canada since his coronation, has never commented on Trump’s repeated talk of making Canada the 51st US state.
But he will be closely watched for any comments on Canada’s sovereignty, as well as on trade.
Trump has slapped tariffs on Canadian goods including sector-specific levies on autos, steel and aluminum, rattling the Canadian economy — though he has suspended some of them pending negotiations.
Queen Camilla will accompany Charles on the 24-hour visit to Ottawa.


Carney has said his newly-elected government has been given a mandate “to define a new economic and security relationship with the United States,” a neighbor he believes Canada “can no longer trust.”
He has promised to curb reliance on trade with the United States by boosting internal commerce while forging deeper economic ties with allies overseas.
The government’s path to “build Canada strong” will be outlined in Charles’s speech, Carney said last week.
A government statement described the visit as “a momentous and historic occasion that underscores Canada’s identity and sovereignty as a constitutional monarchy.”
Trump repeatedly returned to his annexation musings during Carney’s Oval Office visit earlier this month, insisting it would be a “wonderful marriage.”
Carney stood his ground, saying Canada was “never for sale.”
Trump’s envoy to Canada, Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, dismissed the notion that inviting Charles to open parliament was an effective way to make a statement on annexation.
“If there’s a message in there, there’s easier ways to send messages. Just give me a call. Carney can call the president at any time,” he told the public broadcaster CBC last week.
Hoekstra added that he sees the annexation issue as being “over.”
“Move on. If the Canadians want to keep talking about it — that’s their business.”


Charles and Camilla are scheduled to land in Ottawa on Monday afternoon.
They’ll be received by Governor General Mary Simon, Carney, Indigenous leaders and other dignitaries before meeting community organizations in Ottawa.
Charles also holds an audience with Carney on Monday.
At the Senate on Tuesday, the monarch will receive full military honors before delivering the throne speech.
Canadian royal commentator Edward Wang told AFP he was traveling from his home in the west coast city of Vancouver to Ottawa for the visit.
“At a time when the sovereignty of our country is being challenged, having our head of state open the first session of a new Parliament sends a signal,” he said.
“The entire world will be watching.”