US to loosen rules on Tesla, other carmakers taking on China in race for self-driving cars

The Trump administration is loosening rules to help US automakers like Elon Musk‘s Tesla develop self-driving cars so they can take on Chinese rivals. US companies developing self-driving cars will be allowed exemptions from certain federal safety rules for testing purposes, the Transportation Department said Thursday. The department also said it will streamline crash reporting requirements involving self-driving software that Musk has criticized as onerous and will move toward a single set of national rules for the technology to replace a patchwork…