California’s first self-driving trucks are on the road, and the rules behind them are in court

California has issued its first permits to test autonomous trucks on public roads, to Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI, with Kodiak already running vehicles around Mountain View. Teamsters California filed suit on 5 August asking a court to repeal the rules that made the permits possible.

Self-driving trucks are testing on California public roads for the first time. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has issued permits to Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI, and Kodiak has already put a handful of trucks to work, mostly around its Mountain View office.

It follows a rule change on 28 April that lifted California’s ban on testing autonomous vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds, a restriction that had kept both companies out of their home state for years.

The permits are narrow. A safety driver has to stay behind the wheel, and testing is barred on roads posted at 25mph or below unless the truck is taking a direct route between destinations.

The rules underneath them are already being challenged. Teamsters California filed a writ petition in Alameda Superior Court on 5 August, days before the permits were granted, asking a judge to repeal the regulations outright.

The union’s case is procedural rather than technological. It argues the DMV sidestepped requirements to study and publish the economic impact of allowing driverless heavy trucks, and failed to properly weigh the risk to other road users.

“Such a critical decision with life-and-death consequences must involve public input and transparency,” said Peter Finn, a Teamsters California co-chair, “that is why Teamsters California is taking the DMV to court.”

The union is not relying on the courts alone. Co-chair Victor Mineros said it would keep fighting “in the courtroom, at the ballot box, and into the next administration,” and gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has committed to reversing the DMV rules if he wins.

There is a reason this arrived as regulation rather than legislation. California lawmakers passed a bill in 2023 requiring human operators in autonomous trucks and Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, leaving the DMV to set the terms.

Both companies spent the wait in Texas. Aurora began driverless freight there in May 2025 and runs routes including Fort Worth to El Paso and Laredo to Dallas, while Kodiak started in January 2025, and both fit their hardware and software to production semi-trucks rather than building cabless vehicles from scratch.

The pattern is becoming familiar across the sector, which keeps scaling faster than the arguments about it can be settled.