Arizona is where self-driving cars go to learn

PHOENIX — Three weeks into his new job as Arizona’s governor, Doug Ducey made a move that won over Silicon Valley and paved the way for his state to become a driverless car utopia.

It was January 2015, and the Phoenix area was about to host the Super Bowl. Ducey learned that a local regulator was planning a sting on Lyft and Uber drivers to shut down the ride-hailing services for operating illegally. Ducey, a Republican who was the former chief executive of the ice cream chain Cold Stone Creamery, was furious.

“It was the exact opposite message we should have been sending,” Ducey said in an interview. “We needed our message to Uber, Lyft and other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to be that Arizona was open to new ideas.” If the state had a slogan, he added, it would include the words “open for business.”

Ducey fired the regulator who hatched the idea of going after ride-hailing drivers and shut down the entire agency, the Department of Weights and Measures. By April 2015, Arizona had legalized ride-sharing.

Arizona has since built upon the governor’s action to become a favored partner for the tech industry, turning itself into a live laboratory for self-driving vehicles. Over the past two years, Arizona deliberately cultivated a rules-free environment for driverless cars, unlike dozens of other states that have enacted autonomous vehicle regulations over safety, taxes and insurance.

Arizona took its anything-goes approach while federal regulators delayed formulating an overarching set of self-driving car standards, leaving a gap for states. The federal government is only now poised to create its first law for autonomous vehicles; the law, which echoes Arizona’s stance, would let hundreds of thousands of them be deployed within a few years and would restrict states from putting up hurdles for the industry.

“We are in the Wild West phase of autonomous vehicles, where companies are looking for the state with the least amount of sheriffing going on,” said Henry Jasny, senior vice president at Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a nonprofit based in Washington.

The payoff for Arizona has been a tech boom, with dozens of autonomous vehicle companies flocking here to set up oper-

DAVID WALTER BANKS / THE NEW YORK TIMES Waymo self-driving vehicles line up Oct. 21 to re-enter the company’s facility after morning test drives in Chandler, Ariz. Arizona has built upon Gov. Doug Ducey’s actions to keep the driverless car industry free of regulations to become a favored...