GM General Motors Company

By Mike Spector 

U.S. highway safety regulators raised concerns over General Motors Co.'s plan to halt semiautonomous vehicles with unresponsive motorists, the latest push from government officials to police the development of self-driving cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urged the Detroit auto maker to ensure safety for a forthcoming "Super Cruise" system feature that will slowly bring vehicles to a stop when motorists fail to retake control of the wheel, according to a letter from the agency to GM disclosed on Monday.

"We note that GM indicates that when the driver is unable or unwilling to take control of the vehicle the system will bring the vehicle to a stop 'in or near the roadway,'" wrote NHTSA Chief Counsel Paul Hemmersbaugh in the Nov. 18 letter to GM.

"We urge GM to fully consider the likely operation of the system it is contemplating and ensure that this fallback solution does not present an unreasonable risk to safety," Mr. Hemmersbaugh wrote.

The letter included a footnote emphasizing that federal law requires recalls for vehicles with safety defects that pose unreasonable risks for accidents or deaths and injuries in crashes.

A GM spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. GM's system, previously set to debut on a Cadillac car this year, has been delayed until 2017.

The NHTSA letter, which approved GM's automatic activation of hazard lights in the slow-halt situation, furthered government officials' push to ramp up oversight for self-driving cars that aren't governed by current regulations. The Obama administration in September released voluntary guidelines pressuring auto makers to self-certify driverless cars through a 15-point safety assessment outlining safeguards should systems fail and how the vehicles are tested, among other details. Auto makers, while supporting officials' efforts to avoid conflicting state rules for autonomous cars, have called the guidelines too ambiguous.

Regulators also have encouraged auto makers to seek interpretations of existing rules to confirm their technologies aren't running afoul of legal requirements. GM did just that, seeking confirmation from regulators that a plan to activate hazard lights when Super Cruise brings cars to a halt complied with a current federal safety standard.

Mr. Hemmersbaugh's letter confirmed GM's hazard-lights plan passed regulatory muster. But the letter also expressed concerns about bringing the vehicle to a stop in or near the roadway in the first place.

GM's plan to sometimes slowly halt vehicles addresses a common concern auto makers face when developing self-driving technology: how to avoid complacency among motorists. Tesla Motors Inc. in September unveiled an update to its semi-automated Autopilot system that disables an auto-steering function when drivers ignore three warnings to put hands back on the wheel in a one-hour span. The feature can't be reactivated until the car is stopped and restarted.

Tesla's update came several months after the Silicon Valley company's technology failed to detect a tractor-trailer cutting in front of one of its electric cars, resulting in a fatal crash. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said the features included in the latest Autopilot update likely would have prevented that crash.

GM's Super Cruise, promoted with hands-free capability, won't be introduced until next year. The auto maker has pointed to "getting the technology right and doing it safely" without pinpointing reasons for the delay.

Write to Mike Spector at mike.spector@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 28, 2016 16:26 ET (21:26 GMT)

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