Teamsters sue California DMV over driverless truck rules, say hundreds of thousands of truck driver jobs at risk

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is facing a legal challenge from the Teamsters over the way the agency rolled out approval for self-driving commercial trucks.

On August 5, 2026, Teamsters California filed suit against the California DMV in Alameda Superior Court, alleging that the agency “circumvented laws requiring the agency to study and publicly disclose the economic impacts of allowing self-driving heavy-duty trucks on the state’s roads, thereby denying the public meaningful input on the decision.”

In late April 2026, the California DMV announced the adoption of new autonomous vehicle (AV) regulations allowing manufacturers to apply for permits to test and deploy heavy-duty autonomous vehicle technology on California roadways.

Teamsters say that the California DMV ignored the California Administrative Procedure Act for enacting regulations when the AV rules were put into place. According to the suit, the California DMV cut corners to avoid the time and expense of a study by instead implementing “a shortcut process meant for minor regulatory updates with less than $50 million in costs or benefits in the first year after implementation.”

Teamsters also said that the California DMV “failed to consider the safety risks to motorists sharing the road with self-driving trucks that are still being tested and have not been fully vetted.”

The lawsuit further accuses the California DMV of threatening the jobs of hundreds of thousands of truck drivers operating in the state:

“The deployment of Self-Driving Trucks, authorized by the regulatory changes, has the potential to eventually wipe out the jobs of more than 200,000 employee semi-truck drivers working across California. A similarly large number of self-employed drivers operating commercial vehicles weighing between 10,001 pounds and 25,999 pounds could also be impacted.“

The lawsuit asserts that “the DMV’s rushed process vastly underestimated the costs of deploying self-driving trucks, outrageously claiming not a single job would be eliminated by autonomous heavy vehicles.”

The lawsuit seeks to repeal the April 2026 AV regulations.