After years of pressure from the autonomous vehicle industry, the California Department of Motor Vehicles is about to allow companies to test and deploy self-driving trucks on public roads.
Now a new speed bump has emerged.
Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a member of the California Assembly, was introduced in late January an invoice that would require a trained human safety operator to be present when a heavy duty autonomous vehicle is driving on public roads in the state.
Companies are still using human safety operators when testing autonomous trucks on public roads in other states. (Remember, California currently bans the practice altogether.) But the ultimate goal is to get rid of those human drivers.
The proposed AB-316 bill has brought some uncertainty to those plans. What AV companies and industry stakeholders want to know now is: Does this bill spell the end of the Sunshine State’s autonomous truck industry?
The answer is complicated.
What the proposed bill resource for AV controllers
There is no indication that the introduction of AB-316 will affect the DMV’s regulatory process in the near term. The bill was introduced just as the DMV was holding a public workshop to discuss the regulatory considerations of autonomous vehicles weighing more than 10,001 pounds. If Governor Gavin Newsom signs the proposed AB-316 bill into law, it would not go into effect until around January 1, 2024, according to the California Legislature’s timeline.
But if the bill passes, it would limit it the DMV’s authority to regulate AVs, power the agency has held since 2012.
The DMV will still regulate the testing and deployment of automated vehicles. However, legislators who co-authored the bill agreed with the DMW’s authority to grant permission to test and deploy these technologies, and a qualified person should be in the cab of the truck in the near future capable of responding to an emergency.
What it means for AV companies
The bill was written as a preventative measure. The co-authors expect the DMV to soon lift its current ban on testing and deploying autonomous vehicles in excess of £10,0001. The DMV recently held a public workshop to discuss regulatory considerations for self-driving trucks. The legislation, if passed, would require those vehicles to always have a safety operator behind the wheel, preventing driverless trucks from being tested as they were intended to be used.
It can also complicate future interstate freight trips.
Today, most AV companies developing autonomous trucks have operations in Florida, Texas, and Arizona. Testing on interstates between the states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona is a regular occurrence.
The price is adding California. That would allow trucks to move cargo between active ports in California and Texas — and eventually beyond. A law mandating a human driver behind the wheel would force companies to adapt or avoid the state altogether.
That is already happening to some extent. For example, Kodiak Robotics launched a commercial run from coast to coast between Florida, Texas and California for 10 Roads Express with a human safety operator behind the wheel. When the trucks arrived in California, the autonomous system switched to ADAS, which is not regulated by the state.
That adjustment doesn’t mean much now, as Kodiak, and virtually every other autonomous transportation company, has yet to retire the human safety operator. Once these companies are ready to conduct commercial operations, human removal will be essential to reduce operational costs.
“This is not a situation where it’s going to take a huge legislative effort to turn it off, unless members of the legislature disagree that it’s time to allow fully self-driving cars,” Aguiar-Curry told businessroundups.org. “We support the governor and his efforts to drive greater efficiency in freight transportation, but I feel it is my responsibility as a legislator, and on behalf of my constituents, to say that fully driverless trucking should not take place until we are all convinced that a driverless vehicle is truly safe.”
In other words, Aquiar-Curry and the bill’s other co-authors aren’t saying they never want to see driver-out operations in California. New legislation could be drafted to relax or remove the driver safety requirement in the future, but only if AV companies convince the legislature of the safety of their vehicles.
Some members of the AV community are skeptical of the legislature’s standard for AV safety.
An AV staffer who specializes in policy told businessroundups.org he thinks the legislature is “still learning about this technology.” A polite way of saying lawmakers aren’t aware enough of the nuances of self-driving technology to regulate it.
And that employee may have a point.
A legislature source familiar with the matter admitted that Aguiar-Curry’s office had not worked closely with the autonomous technology industry in drafting the bill, but had spoken extensively with the California Trucking Association and agricultural shippers.
Supporters of the bill also seem confused by the different levels of autonomy.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters sent businessroundups.org a fact sheet with many arguments for the legislation. Among the arguments were several quotes from different accidents, many of them fatal, involving AVs. These accidents mainly involved Teslas and other passenger cars advanced driver assistance systemsno fully autonomous systems that AV companies are working on.
AV companies also point out that these accidents happen even with a driver behind the wheel.
The Teamsters and other proponents of the bill believe that the legislature should be involved in the regulation of autonomous vehicles, but they must admit that the DMV has not exactly been slow.
California has one of the strictest regulations for autonomous vehicle testing and deployment in the country, and the DMV, in conjunction with the California Public Utilities Commission, has a lengthy and measured process to allow AVs to test on public roads , even with a safety driver.
Members of the AV industry say there’s no reason to think the agency wouldn’t come to the regulation of heavy-duty AVs with the same rigor.
