California's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) issued testing permits to Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI to operate autonomous freight trucks on public roads, and Kodiak has already begun operations. Rules approved on April 28 lifted the ban that had prevented driverless vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds from using the state's roadways.
The decision comes amid active litigation. According to ABC7, the California Teamsters union sued the DMV in Alameda County Superior Court for failing to study or disclose the potential economic impact of autonomous trucks on employment. For the Latino community in North America, the issue is not a distant one: both companies already operate in Texas on routes such as Dallas-Houston, Fort Worth-El Paso, and Laredo-Dallas, corridors through which a significant share of U.S.-Mexico trade flows. Both companies are headquartered in California but concentrated their testing in Texas while the state maintained its ban.
The permits require a safety operator behind the wheel and prohibit operation where speed limits are 25 miles per hour or below, except on direct routes between destinations. Aurora launched its autonomous trucking service in Texas in May 2025 and has been adding routes since; Kodiak began driverless commercial operations in January 2025 in the Permian Basin. A report commissioned by Aurora projects 170,000 autonomous trucks on U.S. roads by 2035, representing 15% of the freight market. This week, the company Bot Auto completed a 230-mile driverless trip between Houston and Dallas. William Hall, owner of a port operator in Oakland, told ABC7 that the biggest challenge for transportation companies today is finding and retaining drivers.
The next step, according to both companies, is moving from safety-operator testing to fully driverless operation in California. The outcome of the union lawsuit and the rules the DMV prepares will set the pace at which automation reaches a freight corridor connecting Mexico to the United States.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.