Despite continued consumer skepticism towards autonomous vehicles (AVs) and a lack of progress in implementing a uniform set of regulations to govern their deployment, the industry is actively seeking a commercially viable path towards AV adoption in the United States. Indeed, the number of AVs on US roads continues to grow, largely due to the small armies of autonomous robotaxis that are being rolled out in major metropolitan areas in California and across the American Southwest.
This article examines the dichotomy in AV deployment in the United States: the continued lack of momentum for uniform regulation of AVs by the federal government, on the one hand, and the continued progress toward commercial deployment of AVs by the private sector on the other.
The demand problem: Consumer sentiment toward AVs
A decade ago, thought leaders across the tech and automotive sectors made bullish claims about the breakneck pace at which AVs would take over US roads. Some said as soon as 2018, others by the early 2020s. Ten years later, those predictions have not exactly been realized. Mass adoption of AVs has not taken place, and the problem is not technological stagnation. The real obstacle to AV adoption is twofold: (i) a lack of consumer demand and (ii) slow progress toward a uniform set of regulations to govern AV deployment.
A recent Gallup poll revealed that a growing number of US consumers think self-driving cars are coming, but they still do not want them. In the survey, 31% of respondents said they believed AVs would be commonly used within the next five years (up from 19% in 2018), but only 19% said they would personally own or lease one—the same figure as in 2018. Just 13% of respondents said they viewed AVs as the safest option on US roads, down a full 5 percentage points from 2018. That last statistic may be due in part to a series of highly publicized fatal accidents in recent years caused by consumers’ use or misuse of advanced driver assistance systems in their vehicles.
As further evidence of consumers' middling interest in AVs both in the US and globally, in March 2026, BMW announced that it had cancelled plans to introduce Level 3 self-driving technology in its newly updated flagship sedan, the 2027 BMW 7-Series. The stated reason? Customer demand for the costly option, which in Germany would have been priced at nearly US$6,000, was too low to be profitable.
The US federal regulatory framework: Incremental progress, persistent gaps
US regulation of AVs has seen slow progress at the federal level, and the little progress that has been made has come from the executive branch. In April 2025, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) released an AV framework that articulated federal policy objectives for regulating AVs. The DOT also implemented certain regulatory changes intended to streamline AV crash reporting requirements for manufacturers and to expand the availability of exemptions to federal motor vehicle safety standards for AVs operated on US roads, including the first such exemption for an autonomous robotaxi issued to Zoox on July 31, 2026.
Also in July, the DOT announced a US$5 million partnership with SAE Industry Technologies Consortia to gather data that will inform uniform, federal standards for AV performance intended to supplant the existing patchwork of state regulations discussed further below. And on September 3, the DOT released a 12-page National Strategy for Automated Vehicles. Effectively a sequel to the April 2025 framework, the National Strategy document emphasizes the driving safety advantages offered by AVs by reducing opportunities for human error (estimated to account for more than 90 percent of fatal crashes on US roads) and the need to update federal safety standards to accommodate AV innovation.
Despite these efforts and statements of intention by the executive branch, comprehensive, uniform regulation of AV deployment in the US likely will require legislation from Congress. Legislative priorities are dictated in large part by the issues of concern to the American public, and as the Gallup poll makes clear, AV deployment currently is not one of those issues. Accordingly, bills that would have created uniform rules for the operation of AVs and superseded the existing patchwork of divergent state AV laws and regulations have repeatedly failed. It remains to be seen whether the latest of these bills, the SELF DRIVE Act of 2026 (H.R. 7390), which was introduced in the US House of Representatives in February 2026, can buck that trend. The bill was forwarded to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on February 10, and since then has shown no signs of further advancement.
The state level regulatory patchwork
Without a federal level framework, one of the inevitable and defining features of US AV regulation is state-by-state development which ultimately has produced a fragmented legal landscape that presents a significant compliance challenge for operators seeking to deploy AVs at scale across multiple jurisdictions. For example, whereas New York has adopted a more conservative approach, requiring a licensed human safety driver to be behind the wheel of any AV deployed on public roads, other states, including Texas, Arizona, and Florida, permit AV testing on public roads without a human driver present. And even among states with more liberal approaches to AV regulation, permitting, insurance, and incident reporting requirements vary. California, for example, operates one of the most developed AV permitting regimes in the US, with separate permit requirements for testing (with or without a safety driver) and for commercial deployment. California also requires mandatory reporting of disengagements and accidents.
Commercial deployment: Robotaxis and trucking, where AV technology is hitting the road
As noted above, regulatory complexity has not stalled the deployment of AV technology, and autonomous robotaxis are being rolled out in major metropolitan areas across the US at increasing rates.
For example, one cannot spend more than a few minutes on the road in greater Los Angeles or San Francisco without encountering one of Waymo's white Jaguar I-PACE electric robotaxis maneuvering through traffic, LIDAR tower spinning on the roof, passengers on their phones in the back seat, and no one behind the wheel. Currently there are more than 4,000 such vehicles in service in the US, and a recent forecast by Goldman Sachs estimates that number will reach 35,000 by the end of the decade.
While predictions of explosive AV growth have not always proven accurate, it appears the robotaxi is the only application of AV technology at present which is demonstrating genuine commercial viability and growth potential in the US market. This can be attributed to a range of factors: robotaxi fleets are contained to specific metropolitan areas, which means operators only have to satisfy regulatory requirements for commercial AV deployment in select jurisdictions and do not have to navigate the patchwork of laws and regulations across all 50 US states. In addition, most robotaxis, including most of Waymo's fleet, are simply modified versions of mass-market consumer vehicles engineered to comply with existing US motor vehicle safety regulations. At present, they are also operating in cities with more easily navigable road networks.
US consumer willingness to ride in robotaxis, despite the lack of consumer demand for personal AVs, is likely attributable to a range of factors, including the lower level of commitment involved in taking a short ride across town compared to purchasing an AV, and the fact that in urban areas consumers are already conditioned to relinquishing control over their personal safety when they ride in conventional taxis, rideshares, buses, and trains.
Commercial trucking may be the next frontier. Companies such as Aurora Innovation, Kodiak AI, and Gatik are quietly and gradually increasing the number of driverless tractor-trailers in service on US highways—some supervised by safety drivers—in states such as Texas and California. Aurora's CEO has indicated the company expects to have more than 200 such vehicles on the road by the end of this year and thousands in service by the end of 2027. Volvo AB’s AV division, Volvo Autonomous Solutions, similarly plans to build hundreds of driverless trucks in 2027 for deployment with companies such as Aurora.
Use of driverless trucks presents obvious commercial advantages to trucking companies. Critically, AVs do not become fatigued after long periods of driving—a significant limitation for human drivers, who are only permitted to drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty under US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations.
Outlook
Despite the lack of a coherent US regulatory framework governing the sale and operation of AVs and weak consumer sentiment towards personally “driven” AVs, the commercial deployment of AVs in robotaxi fleets and on trucking routes is happening in real time, with steadily increasing momentum, as these applications for AV technology have proven the most workable within existing US State and federal regulatory regimes. However, with more centralized frameworks being developed across the globe, including in the UK and Germany, the US could soon find itself falling behind.
In the meantime, for OEMs, AV technology companies, operators, and investors looking at the US market, the immediate priority should not be to wait for a federal framework that could yet be years still in the making, but instead to understand the state-level regimes where deployment is commercially viable and build a strategy accordingly.
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