SACRAMENTO, California — Until now, California state officials have been in the driver's seat on regulating robotaxis — giving the industry room to experiment with the emerging technology on city streets and leaving local governments little room to object.
But a new bill pushed by the Teamsters Union in conjunction with local leaders would take exclusive control from the state, empowering cities and counties to impose conditions or outright reject autonomous vehicles by requiring local ordinances to be in place before cars can hit the streets.
That could constrain an industry that's been eager to roll out new vehicles and has so far enjoyed the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a tech-centric Democrat who rejected an effort last year to bypass state regulators by putting new limits on self-driving trucks.
The bill, first reported here, would harness a politically formidable alliance between labor and local governments in an intense debate over whether robotaxis belong on city streets. In San Francisco last year, concerns about vehicles snarling traffic and impeding first responders — echoed by Los Angeles officials — were overridden by state regulators, who approved them anyway.
The proposal would also launch a new skirmish in a broader struggle over automation between organized labor and major technology companies, which drove record AV industry lobbying in Sacramento and is playing out around the country as policymakers grapple with transformative technological advances. The Teamsters’ push could serve as an important regulatory model for other cities like New York that are considering driverless taxis.
It also directly challenges Newsom, who last year sided with the AV industry in vetoing the Teamsters’ bill blocking self-driving trucks.
“The Teamsters are not going away on this issue,” said Peter Finn, who is vice president of the Teamsters’ western region. “We cannot outsource the decision on how autonomous vehicle technology is being rolled out to big corporations that have their own specific interest, which is profit.”
The looming legislative fight underscores concerns about automation and artificial intelligence writ large. Amid the advent of next-generation technologies that can impersonate humans and perform various jobs, elected officials — even Democrats in tech-centric California — are wary of innovation outrunning their ability to regulate it.
“AI in general is coming at us like a booster rocket went off,” said state Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), a labor ally who is carrying the bill. “We don’t have an absolute laissez-faire system where anyone who innovates something can just put it out on the street without regulation.”
San Franciscans have become accustomed to seeing cars maneuver traffic and climb the city’s famous hills without a human onboard — and to seeing those cars block intersections or hem in firetrucks. The rocky rollout of robot vehicles has fomented political conflict and complicated the industry’s expansion plans, both in the industry’s hub of San Francisco and in car-centric Los Angeles.
Despite strenuous opposition from San Francisco officials, a state regulator voted last summer to let Cruise and Waymo’s driverless cars transport paying customers. A litany of mishaps immediately vindicated local concerns, culminating in a Cruise vehicle striking and dragging a woman who had been thrown into its path by another vehicle.
The state
Sacramento jumps into California’s robotaxi wars
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09.01.2024
SACRAMENTO, California — Until now, California state officials have been in the driver's seat on regulating robotaxis — giving the industry room to experiment with the emerging technology on city streets and leaving local governments little room to object.
But a new bill pushed by the Teamsters Union in conjunction with local leaders would take exclusive control from the state, empowering cities and counties to impose conditions or outright reject autonomous vehicles by requiring local ordinances to be in place before cars can hit the streets.
That could constrain an industry that's been eager to roll out new vehicles and has so far enjoyed the support of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a tech-centric Democrat who rejected an effort last year to bypass state regulators by putting new limits on self-driving trucks.
The bill, first reported here, would harness a........
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