Driverless Trucks Have Hit California's Motorways: The Union Is Suing Because Nobody Calculated Who It Costs

Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI have received permits from the California motor vehicles department to test driverless trucks on public roads. Kodiak has already started - a few test trucks, mainly around its office in Mountain View. Both firms are Californian, and until recently they were driving in Texas because it was banned at home.

The ban fell on 28 April. Until then, vehicles over 4,500 kilograms could not be tested autonomously on a public road in California. The new rules raised that limit and opened the way not only for testing but for later commercial operation of heavy trucks.

The conditions are not symbolic. There must be a person at the wheel. They may not drive on streets with limits up to 40 kilometres per hour, unless that is a "direct connection" between two destinations. The firms had to demonstrate insurance, registration, the qualifications of the safety driver and a series of further criteria.

The union went to court

And here the story stops being technological. Last week Teamsters California sued the motor vehicles department itself, claiming the agency bypassed the laws obliging it first to study and publicly release the possible economic consequences of driverless trucks. The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County, also accuses the agency of failing to consider the safety risks to others on the road.

So the state body is not in court against the companies. It is in court against the people whose jobs are the subject of the permit. That alone shows what the real dispute is: not whether the truck can drive, but whether anyone calculated how many drivers lose their work and then declined to put it on paper.

The two firms are not waiting in the meantime. Aurora launched its service in Texas in May 2025 on the Dallas - Houston route, and has since added Fort Worth - El Paso, El Paso - Phoenix, Fort Worth - Phoenix and Laredo - Dallas. Kodiak began commercial driverless operation in January 2025 in the Permian Basin in west Texas, off public roads, and then moved onto the motorway, including the same Dallas - Houston route.

It is worth noting what has gone to court here and what has not. Nobody is claiming the truck cannot drive - the tests in Texas have run for more than a year. The dispute is about whether the state may permit something without calculating who it costs. That is a question raised in every market where truck driving is a serious profession and not just a line in a spreadsheet.

And that question does not stop at the California border. When the autonomous truck becomes cheaper than a person, the first routes to get it will not be the ones with the most traffic but the ones with the longest straight stretches and the most expensive drivers. Will anyone have done that calculation for our region by then - or will the permit arrive before the analysis, as in California?