Autonomous trucking is moving rapidly from pilot projects to real-world freight operations, promising efficiency gains, lower costs, and improved road safety. Yet as the technology advances, legal frameworks are struggling to keep pace. Product liability risk is emerging as one of the most consequential — and least resolved — challenges facing autonomous truck manufacturers, software developers, and fleet operators, raising questions that could shape the future economics of self-driving freight.

Unlike traditional trucking, autonomy introduces a fragmented responsibility chain. Hardware is typically produced by original equipment manufacturers, software by autonomous driving developers, and operations by commercial fleets. When something goes wrong, that division creates immediate legal ambiguity. In product liability cases, plaintiffs are not required to identify a single culprit; instead, they often pursue multiple defendants simultaneously, alleging design, manufacturing, or marketing defects that contributed to injury or financial loss.

Lessons From Passenger Vehicles

Recent court rulings involving semi-autonomous passenger vehicles illustrate the scale of potential exposure. In August 2025, Tesla was found partially liable for a fatal 2019 crash involving its Autopilot system. A federal jury awarded $43 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages, underscoring how juries may respond when advanced driver-assistance systems fail to perform as expected.

While robotaxis and consumer vehicles have dominated headlines, the financial stakes in trucking are arguably higher. Commercial trucks carry greater mass, operate at highway speeds, and are involved in accidents that often result in severe injuries or fatalities. Even a small number of high-profile crashes could translate into liabilities running into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Who Is Responsible When Autonomy Fails?

In traditional trucking, liability usually rests with the driver, fleet, or vehicle manufacturer depending on the circumstances. Autonomous trucks blur these lines. If a virtual driver misjudges a situation, is responsibility borne by the software developer, the OEM that integrated the system, or the fleet that deployed the vehicle? Until courts establish consistent precedents, the answer remains uncertain.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys are likely to adopt a broad strategy, naming all parties connected to the vehicle’s design, deployment, and operation. For autonomous technology providers, claims may focus on whether the system was prematurely commercialized or oversold in terms of its capabilities. For fleets, liability may arise from decisions to deploy autonomy in environments that exceed safe operational limits.

“Safer Than Humans” Is Not a Legal Shield

Autonomous truck developers often emphasize that their systems are statistically safer than human drivers, citing superior sensors, faster reaction times, and reduced fatigue. While compelling from a public policy standpoint, this argument carries limited weight in product liability law. Courts evaluate whether a product is defective, not whether it performs better on average than a human alternative.

Past cases involving traditional trucking equipment reinforce this point. Manufacturers have faced massive verdicts even when other factors — such as driver behavior — contributed to the accident. For autonomous trucking, this means that fewer crashes overall do not eliminate the risk of catastrophic legal outcomes when failures do occur.

What Comes Next for the Industry

The legal environment surrounding autonomous trucking will likely be shaped through litigation rather than legislation, at least in the near term. Each verdict or settlement will help define responsibility across the autonomy supply chain. Until clearer standards emerge, manufacturers and fleets face a delicate balancing act between innovation and risk management.

For investors and operators alike, the key question is not whether accidents will happen, but how liability will be allocated when they do — and whether insurance, pricing, and deployment strategies adequately reflect that reality.