Kodiak and Aurora Innovation have received permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test self-driving trucks on public roads, marking the first time heavy-duty autonomous vehicles have been authorized to operate on California highways1,2ctx.
Kodiak obtained its permit on August 13 under the DMV's newly expanded Autonomous Vehicle Tester (AVT) programme. The company has already begun testing with a handful of trucks near its Mountain View office. Aurora Innovation also received a permit under the same programme.
The permits follow regulations the California DMV approved on April 28 that lifted a ban on testing driverless vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds on public roads and established a regulatory path for companies to test, and eventually deploy, autonomous heavy-duty vehicles. The testing permits require a human safety operator behind the wheel and prohibit operation on roads with posted speed limits of 25 miles per hour or less, unless the truck is on a direct route between destinations.
"California's comprehensive autonomous vehicle regulations are a major unlock for freight innovation," said Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak. "This permit allows us to begin the first phase of scaling autonomous trucking coast-to-coast, while ensuring appropriate safety oversight from California regulators".
The permit represents the first step in the DMV's phased permitting approach, which progresses from drivered testing to driver-out testing and ultimately driver-out deployment5. According to the DMV, both Aurora and Kodiak met permitting criteria including safety, insurance, vehicle registration, and safety driver qualification requirements.
Before the regulatory change in California, both companies focused testing primarily in Texas. Aurora launched a driverless freight service on the Dallas-to-Houston route in May 2025 and later expanded to routes including El Paso, Phoenix, and Laredo. Kodiak began commercial driverless operations in January 2025 in the Permian Basin of West Texas and has since expanded to on-highway operations including a Dallas-to-Houston route.
Kodiak's commercial partners and customers include Atlas Energy Solutions, IKEA, J.B. Hunt, Bridgestone, Werner Enterprises, C.R. England, General Dynamics Land Systems, and Roehl Transport. The company's Kodiak Driver system is described as a vehicle-agnostic autonomous driving platform combining AI-powered software with modular hardware, already deployed in commercial operation with no one in the cab in other jurisdictions.
Separately, a headline from CyberGuy indicates 100 Kodiak driverless trucks are headed for public roadways7. Aurora also announced that Charger Logistics will deploy second-generation driverless trucks8.
The expansion into California is not without opposition. Teamsters California has sued the state's DMV in Alameda County Superior Court, alleging the agency circumvented laws requiring it to study and publicly disclose the possible economic impacts of allowing self-driving trucks on public roads. The lawsuit also accused the DMV of failing to consider safety risks to motorists.
ANALYSIS The simultaneous permitting of both Aurora and Kodiak under the new AVT programme converts California from a state where heavy-duty autonomous trucks were barred from public roads into an active testing ground, adding a major market to the Texas corridors where both companies have been operating commercially. The pending lawsuit, however, introduces regulatory uncertainty that could affect the pace at which the DMV advances permits from the current drivered-testing phase toward driver-out deployment.