California proposes allowing testing of self-driving heavy-duty trucks

LOS ANGELES — California regulators have released a new proposal to allow the testing of self-driving heavy duty trucks on public roads.

The state's Department of Motor Vehicles announced proposed regulations Friday to allow the testing of self-driving vehicles over 10,001 pounds, opening the door for companies to test self-driving technology with previously prohibited autonomous commercial semi-trucks on the road.

Regulators say self-driving heavy-duty trucks are already being tested in other states including Texas, Arizona and Arkansas. California is the only state with regulations that explicitly ban them.

The regulations are subject to a public comment period that ends in June.

They will likely face pushback from the labor unions that represent the state's hundreds of thousands of commercial truck drivers, who are concerned about safety and losing truck driving jobs to automation in the future.

The California Legislature passed a bill in 2023 to require human drivers aboard self-driving trucks, but it was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said additional regulation was unnecessarily because existing laws governing self-driving vehicles were sufficient.

The proposed regulations will also enhance data-reporting requirements for manufacturers, such as reporting instances when cars stop in the middle of an active road for any reason and need to be retrieved. They will give the state's Department of Motor Vehicles more authority to apply “incremental enforcement measures” against companies instead of fully suspending their testing permits.