Self-driving car companies Waymo, Tesla to testify at key Senate committee on regulating growing industry

Top officials from self-driving car companies Waymo and Tesla are headed to the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday as lawmakers consider the future of federal regulation in the growing industry. 

"We believe Congress has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure American leadership in this industry by creating a national AV legislative framework that sets a high safety standard for this industry," Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña will say in his written testimony at the hearing. "Greater certainty will unlock even more investment and prevent bad actors from undermining public trust in this novel, life-changing technology."

The hearing comes at a time when a growing number of cities and states are allowing self-driving technology like Waymo. But skepticism of autonomous vehicles remains amid some highly publicized recent incidents involving Waymos. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into Waymo late last year after at least 19 incidents of Waymos driving past stopped school buses in Austin.

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And last week, a Waymo struck a student in Santa Monica, California.

"We're doing over 400,000 trips a week, which means that these are edge cases," Justin Kintz, Waymo’s head of global public policy, told FOX News in an interview. On the Santa Monica incident specifically, Kintz said the result was likely better because a Waymo, instead of a car driven by a person, was involved.

"We immediately identified the pedestrian, began braking immediately. So traveling at 17 mph, the Waymo driver did a hard break and reduced our speed to under six mph before contact was made," Kintz said. "By contrast, our model showed that an attentive human driver would have been going about 14 mph, which makes a big difference."

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Kintz added Waymo is cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board and the NHTSA as they investigate that crash.

Waymo and Tesla are likely to have a sympathetic ear in Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He touted the potential for autonomous vehicles to reduce traffic, cut crashes and help people with disabilities gain independence in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. But, he said, "A confusing mix of federal and state laws makes it much more difficult to bring safer, more advanced autonomous vehicles to market."

Cruz added: "This hearing will examine how outdated regulations are holding back lifesaving technology – and what Congress can do to fix it."

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., also on the Commerce Committee, was more cautious in an interview with Fox News Monday night. 

"I hear from people back home and they want to understand safety. They want to understand, a lot of sort of the practical questions, understand the technology," Schmitt said. "There's privacy issues, of course, that are going to be involved. So we'll see. It's an emerging issue."

Kintz said national safety standards could help Americans adopting self-driving tech feel more confident when they get in one of the cars. He said it would also prevent "a crazy patchwork of regulations, which could really slow the development of the technology."

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Peña, Waymo’s chief safety officer, will also warn that "Chinese competitors are scaling rapidly with heavy state support, and – second to Waymo – the largest AV fleets in the world are operated by Chinese AV companies."

"In the absence of U.S. leadership on a national AV legislative framework, Chinese AV competitors will fill the gap and set the safety and technical standards for the rest of the world," Peña will add in his prepared testimony. 

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Peña will be joined by Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy and Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association CEO Jeff Farrah at the witness stand Wednesday.

Fox News Digital's Bonny Chu contributed to this report.