| Last week, the California State Assembly passed a bill that would require a safety driver on board for all autonomous trucks over 10,000 pounds. AB 316, which had a 54-3 vote, was introduced in January and awaits a vote in the State Senate. If enacted, the rules would require autonomous trucks to have a human driver until at least 2029. If the Senate passes the bill, Gov. Gavin Newsom would hold the power to veto or sign it into law. Earlier this year, Newsom and Elon Musk announced Tesla's new engineering headquarters at the former offices of Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, with autonomous driving (including for the Tesla Semi) being a major focus of the new center. 
Teamsters, among other labor groups, have lobbied for support of the bill, which has received endorsements from San Francisco Mayor London Breed and U.S. Reps. Katie Porter, Barbara Lee, and Adam Schiff. In 2022, executives from companies including TuSimple, Uber Freight, UPS, Waymo, and Volvo, among others, in addition to members of various Bay Area chambers of commerce and the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, wrote a letter to Newsom calling for regulation. However, for the companies, the proposed legislation goes too far: "AB 316 is a preemptive technology ban that will put California even further behind other states and lock in the devastating safety status quo on California's roads, which saw more than 4,400 people die last year," said Jeff Farrah, executive director of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association. As Farrah mentions, the bill is preemptive, as the companies headquartered in California — Waymo, Plus, TuSimple, and Kodiak Robotics — currently operate with safety drivers in the state and perform most of their commercial freight routes in states such as Texas. Companies have been increasingly setting up autonomous routes in Texas, with hubs in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, as the state permits autonomous trucking operations without a human driver on board. 
Volvo's Autonomous Solutions division recently opened an office in the area with the purpose of commercializing and delivering self-driving trucks. Waymo tests its self-driving trucks on Interstate 45 between Houston and Dallas. Gatik, which focuses on 300-mile routes, set up a presence in the Dallas area in 2021 and currently delivers groceries from customer fulfillment centers to 30 Kroger locations across the region. Gatik has already been operating without a human driver in Canada through a commercial partnership with food retailer Loblaw. Aurora Technology, which operates its autonomous trucks between Houston and Dallas, has surpassed 41,000 commercial miles without safety-critical human interventions. In Q1, it completed its Beta 6.0 release, which would enable full self-driving capabilities along the aforementioned route. |
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