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For a couple of years now, a legal roadblock forced companies building self-driving trucks to test their technology in other states. Aurora, Kodiak, Gatik, Embark, Plus.AI, nearly all headquartered in California, couldn’t legally put their autonomous trucks on California roads. So they drove them in Texas instead. That changed on April 28, 2026, when California finalized regulations allowing autonomous trucks to operate on state roads for the first time.
Why California’s Decision Carries So Much Weight
California’s GDP ranks it as the fifth-largest economy in the world, ahead of the United Kingdom. It’s home to more freight corridors, ports, and distribution networks than any other U.S. state. It’s also where the people designing these trucks go to work every morning.
So when California barred heavy autonomous trucks from its roads, companies had to split themselves in two: engineers in Silicon Valley, trucks in Dallas and Arizona. It was an expensive mode of operation, but necessary. Texas received the self-driving trucks with open arms. Governor Greg Abbott even called the state “No. 1 for technology and innovation” when Aurora Innovation launched its first commercial driverless trucking service between Dallas and Houston in May 2025.
California’s ban was linked to the Teamsters union, which represents over a million workers in the transportation sector. They had lobbied hard against autonomous trucks for years. They pushed regulators to deny approvals, and they succeeded. Until recently, vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds couldn’t be tested in California under any circumstances.
That ban is now lifted. The ripple effects will be felt far beyond the state line.
What the New Regulations Actually Say
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles finalized the new rules after a process that began in April 2025.
Companies must first complete 500,000 miles of autonomous testing with a safety driver in the vehicle. After that, they can apply for a driverless testing permit. Only after passing through that stage can they apply for commercial deployment permits. Each phase requires demonstrating compliance to the DMV before moving to the next.
Companies also face new accountability rules: they must respond to first responder calls within 30 seconds, stop at CHP weigh stations like any other commercial truck, and allow law enforcement to issue geofencing directives during emergencies. Data on system failures, hard braking events, and immobilizations must be reported monthly.
Heavy-duty trucks transporting passengers, oversize loads, or hazardous materials remain off-limits. The regulations focus specifically on freight trucks on approved highway routes.
What’s Been Happening While California Had the Door Closed
While California was busy figuring out its policy, the industry did not wait. Aurora became the first company in the world to operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads when it launched its Dallas-Houston route in May 2025. Its trucks, equipped with sensors that can detect objects beyond the length of four football fields, had logged over 3 million autonomous miles in supervised pilots before going driverless.
For the first time, autonomous trucks were delivering real freight for real customers, including Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, on one of America’s busiest interstate corridors.
Aurora’s system plans to cover night operations and inclement weather. The company also says its trucks can predict red light runners, detect pedestrians in the dark hundreds of meters away, and handle highway construction zones with cones and lane shifts.
The Freight Industry Has a Real Problem Autonomous Trucks Could Help Solve
There are roughly 60,000 to 80,000 fewer truck drivers in the U.S. right now than the industry needs. The American Trucking Associations puts the shortfall at over 80,000 as of 2025, and some forecasts project the gap could reach 160,000 by 2028. The average age of a professional truck driver in the U.S. is now over 48, and retirement isn’t slowing down.
Long-haul trucking is especially hard to staff. Drivers spend days or weeks away from home. Federal hours-of-service rules cap how many hours they can drive without rest, which limits how much freight a single truck can move per week. A truck that doesn’t need sleep, doesn’t experience fatigue-related lapses, and can legally drive at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday looks attractive to freight operators dealing with those constraints.
According to a January 2025 report, idle trucks due to the driver shortage cost the freight industry approximately $95.5 million per week.
Admittedly, autonomous trucks don’t solve everything. They’re currently best suited to long-haul highway routes, not last-mile deliveries or complex urban environments. But on a 500-mile interstate run between two distribution centers, they could prove more efficient than any human driver, largely because they don’t have off-shift hours.
The Labor Question: Who Gets Displaced, and Who Decides?
There are about 3.5 million truck drivers employed in the U.S. Not all of them will be affected equally, and not all predictions about job loss are reliable, but the concern is palpable.
Some estimates suggest automation could displace as many as 300,000 drivers annually over the long term, particularly those in over-the-road long-haul work where route patterns are predictable and consistent.
Teamsters don’t want driverless trucks on California roads at all. A California Assembly bill in 2025 (AB33) sought to prohibit the delivery of commercial goods via autonomous vehicles without a human operator. Governor Newsom vetoed a similar bill in 2023, citing that existing laws were sufficient.
On the other side, freight operators argue autonomous trucks won’t eliminate driving jobs so much as shift them. Long-haul highway driving, the argument goes, could be handled by autonomous trucks while human drivers focus on complex urban pickup and delivery. Some proponents also point out that the industry can’t fill its existing openings. If trucks sit idle because there aren’t enough drivers, freight doesn’t move and jobs connected to that freight don’t exist either.
Are Autonomous Trucks Safe?
A fully driverless 80,000-pound truck moving at 65 mph is not something most people find easy to accept. That’s understandable. It’s a large, heavy object, and the consequences of a failure are severe.
The data from the broader autonomous vehicle sector offers some reassurance, and some caution. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that about 94% of U.S. road crashes involve human error. Waymo has reported that its autonomous vehicles have had significantly fewer crashes per mile than the human average. That same logic, supporters argue, applies to autonomous trucks.
But self-driving technology still struggles with edge cases. Construction zones with ambiguous lane markings. Sudden tire blowouts. Unusual debris. Severe weather, though Aurora has specifically expanded its operating domain to include inclement conditions. When things go wrong, they tend to go wrong in situations the system didn’t anticipate, not in the normal highway driving it handles well.
California’s requirement of 500,000 miles of supervised testing before driverless operation is partly a response to those concerns. The state wants trucks to have encountered enough variety before going fully unsupervised.
Public trust is another obstacle. A 2025 AAA survey found that only 13% of U.S. drivers said they’d trust riding in a fully self-driving vehicle. 62% of Americans believe autonomous trucks specifically will make highways more dangerous. Among adults 60 and older, that figure reaches 80%.
What 2025 to 2030 Likely Looks Like
The next five years won’t deliver fleets of fully autonomous trucks teeming every highway.
What’s more likely is a slow, corridor-by-corridor expansion. Companies will operate on fixed, well-mapped routes between major distribution hubs, in predictable conditions, with remote monitoring teams on standby. California’s new regulations create a legal path for that expansion in the country’s most economically significant state.
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I’m Dr. Brandial Bright, also known as the AVangelist. As a dedicated and passionate researcher in autonomous and electric vehicles (AVs and EVs), my mission is to educate and raise awareness within the automotive industry. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Level Consulting, I promote the adoption and innovation of advanced vehicle technologies through speaking engagements, consulting, and research as we progress to level 5 fully autonomous vehicles.
