Will Calif. drive out the self-driving vehicle?

Developers: Proposed rules may force them elsewhere

SAN FRANCISCO -- California was the cradle of the self-driving car. Yet when such vehicles are offered to the public for the first time, they may be off limits in the state.

Draft regulations from the California Department of Motor Vehicles are drawing stiff resistance from technology developers such as Silicon Valley's own Google. Those rules would require self-driving cars to have a specially licensed driver prepared to take over the controls. If the rules are finalized, the companies say, they will be forced to go elsewhere to introduce the technology.

The reason? Google's self-driving car would never let a human take the wheel. It would have no steering wheel and pedals -- a design that won tacit approval this month from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which concluded that artificial intelligence software of the type that operates Google's cars can be considered a "driver" under existing federal regulations.

Urmson: A ban on Google tech?

"We need to be careful about the assumption that having a person behind the wheel will make the technology more safe," Chris Urmson, the lead engineer on Google's self-driving car program, warned last month during a conference in Sacramento. 

"On the basis of DMV's proposed regulations," he told officials, such a technology "will not be available in California." 

It would be a heavy blow for California, which has long prided itself on being an early adopter of new transportation technology, from electric vehicles to ride-sharing. And it has prompted soul-searching in the Golden State, which fears losing the economic benefits and prestige of being the first state with self-driving cars. 

The rules "may ultimately drive the development of this promising industry to other states," Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, warned in a statement in December. "We must guard against unreasonably holding back California from doing what it does best: inventing the future." 

Other states are stepping up to seize the opportunity, especially now that the U.S. Department of Transportation has signaled that it won't impede the technology.

Proving grounds are being built across the country to challenge California testing centers such as GoMentum Station, a 5,000-acre complex on a former military base about halfway between Silicon Valley and Sacramento. Randy Iwasaki, who manages the center as executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, is closely watching the outcome of the DMV rulemaking -- and is pushing California lawmakers to extend an exemption for his test center once it is no longer a military base. 

"It's very difficult to get [regulations] right the first time," Iwasaki said. 

Google is exploring its options. After testing its cars for years in its hometown of Mountain View, Calif., Google started testing in Austin, Texas, in 2015. Early this year it expanded to the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, Wash.

Google is also searching for an r&d center in Michigan, as Crain's Detroit Business, an affiliate of Automotive News, reported this month. 

At the conference last month in Sacramento, the DMV's chief counsel, Brian Soublet, closed the three-hour session by suggesting the agency isn't trying to create a patchwork of rules that makes California less attractive. 

"We hear the comments that "Gee, there should be one system,'" Soublet said. He added that the DMV has been paying close attention to federal policy "so that we can encourage the development of the technology in our state.'"