The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a proposed rule this morning looking to require and standardize V2V communications for new light vehicles. The agency says it sees great promise in V2V technology, but believes that unless there’s a single format and programming environment established and mandated now for vehicles to “talk” to each other, the technology will be developed piecemeal from various, proprietary directions. If that’s allowed to happen, V2V tech essentially could end up a tangled mess or fail to catch on, and a beneficial V2V-enabled roadway future may never emerge.

“Without a mandate to require and standardize V2V communications, the agency believes that manufacturers will not be able to move forward in an efficient way and that a critical mass of equipped vehicles would take many years to develop, if ever,” NHTSA states in the proposed rule.