Author: Russ Mitchell

The California Senate passed a bill Sept. 11 mandating human drivers behind the wheel of autonomous trucks on state highways for at least the next five years. Will the governor sign it?

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology may be a failure, Tesla lawyers admit — but it’s not a fraud.

California already is a world leader in the embryonic electric vehicle industry but needs more government help to flourish, according to a new report from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

A big pile of debt comes due at Tesla on March 1 — $920 million worth. But starting in two weeks, the company has a chance to make it disappear.

Elon Musk says an “extreme shortage” of car carrier trailers is partly to blame for Tesla’s delivery woes. That has trucking industry executives and analysts scratching their heads.

State officials figure the Volkswagen diesel emissions testing scandal added an extra 10,000 tons of noxious nitrogen oxide to California’s air. To make up for it, the state will use $423 million of Volkswagen penalty money to cut the same amount of nitrogen oxide by subsidizing the purchase of zero-emission trucks, buses and other vehicles.

Anheuser-Busch, which ordered 40 electric semi-trucks from Tesla last December, on May 3 upped its bet on a green fleet by placing a substantially larger order with a competitor.

On March 18, a robot-driven Volvo operated by Uber hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Advocates for automation maintained that the tragedy shouldn’t detract from the likelihood that driverless technology is eliminating human error and making driving safer.

The human response to possible takeover by robot overlords is off to a troubling start. Of six crash reports involving robot cars filed in California so far this year, two involved a human approaching the car and attacking it.