[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.] NEW YORK — Rule changes announced by the Trump administration could allow automakers to report fewer crashes involving self-driving cars, with Tesla potentially emerging as the main beneficiary. The Transportation Department announced April 24 that it will no longer require automakers to report certain kinds of nonfatal 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.” From the Wright Brothers to the first astronauts on the moon, our nation has always been at the forefront of transportation technology. That’s why today we're unveiling a new Automated Vehicle Framework from @USDOT’s Innovation Agenda ⬇️ ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/W3kbMUwQSn — Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) April 24, 2025 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 carmakers 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.” TSLA Quotes