California has officially decided that the state's highways weren't chaotic enough. Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI, two companies that have been perfecting the art of the autonomous big rig, have received permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test their self-driving trucks on public roads. And Kodiak, ever eager, has already started rolling out a handful of test trucks, mostly around its Mountain View office.

The permits come under updated rules approved by the California DMV on April 28, which lifted the ban on driverless vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds testing on public roads. The new rules also provide a regulatory path for companies to eventually deploy autonomous heavy-duty vehicles. Both companies applied this spring, and the DMV, in its infinite wisdom, deemed they met the criteria - safety, insurance, vehicle registration, safety driver qualification, and other hoops.

But before you imagine a future of driverless 18-wheelers barreling down the I-5, note the fine print: a human safety operator must be behind the wheel, and the trucks can't operate on roads with speed limits of 25 mph or less, unless on a 'direct route' between destinations. Because apparently, the DMV is still a little nervous about robots in school zones.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone is thrilled about the prospect of sharing the road with 80,000-pound robots. Last week, Teamsters California sued the state's DMV, alleging the agency skipped legally required studies and public disclosures about the economic impacts of self-driving trucks. The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court, also claims the DMV ignored safety risks to motorists. Because what could possibly go wrong?

For Aurora and Kodiak, both California-based, the new rules are a homecoming of sorts. They'd been focusing their testing and deployment in Texas due to the Golden State's previous ban. Aurora launched a self-driving truck service in Texas in May 2025, starting with a Dallas-to-Houston route, and has since added routes including Fort Worth to El Paso, El Paso to Phoenix, Fort Worth to Phoenix, and Laredo to Dallas. Kodiak, meanwhile, began commercial driverless truck operations in January 2025 in West Texas' remote Permian Basin, and has expanded to on-highway operations, including a Dallas-to-Houston route.

So, California drivers, get ready to share the road with robot trucks. Just remember: they're probably better drivers than the guy in the BMW weaving through traffic.