Teamsters California is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles in Alameda County state court over procedural requirements for adopting regulations that allow autonomous heavy-duty trucks on public roads.

The lawsuit asks the court to rescind the regulations, which the DMV finalized on April 28. Those rules removed a longstanding prohibition on autonomous operation of vehicles weighing more than 10,001 pounds, creating the state’s first permitting pathway for heavy-duty AV testing and deployment. The framework requires manufacturers to progress from safety-driver testing to driverless testing, complete 500,000 miles of testing at each phase, and submit a structured safety case before applying for commercial deployment.

Teamsters California contends the DMV used an abbreviated rulemaking process intended for regulations with less than $50 million in first-year costs or benefits, bypassing the more detailed Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment that state law requires for a change of this scale.

The Teamsters assert there are 200,000 union driver jobs in California and a similar number of owner-operators that operate commercial vehicles in the State. The union claims these jobs are at stake due to the AV regulations, and that safety on the highways will be compromised if AV technology is implemented for heavy duty vehicles.