For more than a decade, one question has loomed over the race to build autonomous vehicles: Are cameras alone enough to safely replace human drivers, or do truly driverless cars need additional, overlapping sensors like lidar and radar to navigate the world reliably? Tesla has bet billions of dollars that artificial intelligence and cameras are sufficient. Nearly every other major autonomous vehicle developer has gone the opposite direction.

Until now, that argument has largely been left to executives and engineers. New Jersey lawmakers are trying to settle it in state law.

A bill expected to come up for a vote later this year would require companies seeking to operate fully autonomous vehicles in New Jersey to use cameras plus two other sensing technologies, most commonly lidar and radar. If enacted, New Jersey would be the first state to codify such a hardware mandate into law, moving ahead of a nearly identical proposal currently pending action in neighboring New York. The measure would also effectively prevent Tesla’s camera-only Robotaxi system from operating in New Jersey unless the company changed its hardware.

“This is not anti-Tesla,” Democratic state Sen. Andrew Zwicker, the bill’s primary sponsor, told The Verge. “I’m pro-New Jersey safety.”

Zwicker, a physicist who works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (New Jersey doesn’t restrict legislators from outside jobs), said after riding in a Waymo robotaxi in Phoenix he became convinced autonomous vehicles could transform transportation.

“I was amazed how quickly you get used to it,” he said.

Waymo uses several lidar sensors, while Tesla relies exclusively on cameras.

The technology, he argues, could dramatically expand mobility, reduce traffic deaths, and make transportation more accessible. But he believes the technology should roll out cautiously in the nation’s most densely populated state.

“At this point, I don’t think the evidence is sufficient that a single sensor with software can handle situations that humans can,” Zwicker said. “Can we get there? Maybe. But we’re not there yet.”

The proposal would establish a three-year pilot program governing the testing and deployment of fully autonomous vehicles in New Jersey. Companies would have to use multiple sensing technologies, report certain crashes, and receive state authorization before operating fully driverless commercial services. They would also have to complete at least 50,000 miles of supervised testing in New Jersey without a major incident before removing the human safety driver. 

While state battles over autonomous vehicles have largely centered on safety performance, oversight, and potential job losses, New Jersey is attempting something different: legislating how the vehicles themselves should be built.

The sensor requirement is by far the bill’s most consequential provision and it would have repercussions beyond Tesla. Elon Musk has long argued that cameras paired with increasingly capable artificial intelligence are the best and most cost effective way to operate autonomous vehicles. Humans navigate the world using vision alone, Musk has said, so sufficiently advanced AI should eventually be able to do the same. Eliminating lidar and radar also dramatically lowers hardware costs, making it easier to build robotaxis cheaply enough to deploy at massive scale.

Musk has even argued that adding more sensors can reduce safety by forcing software to reconcile conflicting information.

“Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins?” he wrote on X last year. “We turned off the radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw.”

Most of the rest of the autonomous vehicle industry disagrees. Companies including Waymo and Zoox combine cameras with lidar and radar, arguing that each sensing technology has different strengths and weaknesses. Cameras capture rich visual detail, allowing vehicles to recognize colors, traffic signs, lane markings, and pedestrians, but they can struggle in poor weather, darkness, or glare. Radar performs better in rain and fog and excels at measuring the distance and relative speed of nearby objects. Lidar uses lasers to create detailed three-dimensional maps of a vehicle’s surroundings, making it particularly effective at determining the shape and distance of nearby objects.

Rather than relying on a single sensor, those companies combine the strengths of all three, arguing that redundancy makes autonomous driving safer. Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon electrical and computer engineering professor and autonomous vehicle safety expert, said camera-only systems may eventually become capable enough for fully autonomous driving. But he doesn’t believe they are today.

As Koopman put it, “eyeballs are better than cameras for many reasons” and “human brains are fundamentally more powerful than AI because we understand.” While there are situations where Koopman said camera-only works just fine — clear weather, favorable lighting, and less complex roads — he believes it’s not ready for broad consumer use.

“To run 24/7 across the majority of public roads in New Jersey today, it needs lidar,” he said. “It’s pretty clear that today camera-only technology is not up to the challenge.”

Koopman supports the New Jersey proposal but said he would prefer even stronger safeguards, such as requiring conventional driving controls like steering wheels and pedals so first responders could move disabled vehicles (so no Cybercabs, which don’t have either), and limits on how many AVs can be on the road during the pilot (a potential provision Zwicker said he’s considering).

“The difference between 100 cars and 10,000 cars is night and day,” Koopman said. When the scale is small, “There’s just not enough cars for that much weird stuff to happen to them.” He pointed to Waymo, which now operates more than 3,500 commercial robotaxis across 11 US metro areas.

“They never used to have problems with floodwaters and school buses — not because they could do floodwaters and school buses,” Koopman said. “But with 100 cars it just doesn’t happen that often.”

Despite a lot of fanfare, Tesla currently only has a handful of unsupervised Robotaxis on the road, mostly in Texas, according to data from Robotaxi Tracker, suggesting it hasn’t been as easy to scale the camera-only approach as Musk had previously promised. Last year he predicted that Tesla would have hundreds of thousands of fully self-driving Teslas operating by the end of 2026. (Tesla did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)

Many of the bill’s provisions mirror recommendations from SAVE-US, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter autonomous vehicle regulation. Physicist and SAVE-US national campaign director Shua Sanchez said the group formed because Congress has failed to establish national rules while autonomous vehicle companies have expanded into states with dramatically different levels of oversight.

“California has the best safety regulations in the country,” he said. “Texas, Arizona, and Georgia have almost no state oversight.”

Among the organization’s priorities is requiring redundant sensing systems.

“We don’t have a problem with Tesla as a company,” Sanchez said. “We have a problem with camera-only autonomous vehicles.”

Nearly every major stakeholder has sought changes to the bill. Waymo successfully pushed to remove a requirement that safety drivers remain in vehicles throughout the pilot, and Uber argued the state should continue requiring human drivers for most rides, according to Zwicker. 

Tesla has been lobbying against the legislation in New Jersey, according to Zwicker, who said company representatives met with lawmakers to argue that advances in artificial intelligence make additional sensor types unnecessary. Zwicker said that while the tech has gotten better, “I’m not convinced yet that they’re ready to go.”

The debate has spilled beyond the state House.

“As written, the legislation imposes restrictions so severely that Tesla’s autonomous vehicle technology couldn’t legally operate in New Jersey,” read a Tesla missive to New Jersey Tesla owners encouraging them to contact lawmakers. “Rather than prioritizing real safety outcomes and performance, the bill specifically bans Tesla from the New Jersey market.”

Zwicker said his office received roughly 4,000 emails within a day. “The messaging wasn’t about the details of the bill,” he said. “It was that Zwicker is trying to take away your Autopilot.”

Zwicker rejects that characterization. The legislation applies only to fully autonomous vehicles operating under the proposed state pilot program — not driver-assistance systems that require a licensed human driver to remain behind the wheel.

The fight in New Jersey reflects a broader vacuum in autonomous vehicle regulation. Congress has debated national autonomous vehicle legislation for years without passing a comprehensive framework, leaving states to develop their own rules as commercial robotaxi services expand. Robotaxi services already operate in states including California, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia under dramatically different regulatory systems. While California requires extensive testing permits and public reporting, it doesn’t specify which tech the AVs need to get there. Texas has adopted a far lighter-touch approach, which lets automakers self-certify that their autonomous vehicles are ready for the road. 

New Jersey’s bill raises the possibility that AV tech there could differ from that of other states. Zwicker says that isn’t his concern.

“The technology doesn’t exist in the Northeast at all,” he said. “The goal is to start now, do it safely, and build public trust.”

Sanchez sees the sensor requirement as a common-sense safeguard rather than a restriction on innovation.

“There are absolutely brilliant people working at Tesla trying to make camera-only autonomy work,” he said. “But they’re trying to do it with one arm tied behind their back.”

With its new pickup, Slate Auto is making a simple bet: price matters more than almost anything else. The company announced today that the American-made electric truck will start at $24,950, placing it squarely in the mid-$20,000 price range it had originally promised and making it the least expensive pickup truck and EV available today. At a time when the average new vehicle costs nearly twice that amount, Slate is pitching something that has become increasingly rare in the modern auto market: a genuinely basic new vehicle that doesn’t look that way.

To hit that price point, Slate stripped away features many drivers now take for granted. The truck doesn’t come with a touchscreen, stereo, or even speakers. Instead, it includes a dash mount for your phone. The windows use manual hand cranks. And unlike many new vehicles marketed around increasingly autonomous features, a Slate requires you to do all the driving yourself.

The timing may be right. The average new vehicle sold for $49,220 in May, according to data from Cox Automotive — a price that’s been heading ever upward. Small and midsize pickups averaged $43,044, while new EVs averaged $54,532. Slate’s truck is even cheaper than the average used vehicle, which goes for $26,918. Its closest pickup competitor, the Ford Maverick, starts at around $30,000, while the Chevrolet Bolt EV begins at roughly $29,000.

For decades, automakers have competed to add more features, bigger screens, and increasingly sophisticated software. Slate is doing the opposite. The company believes at least some buyers would rather have a cheaper truck than a premium sound system, massive infotainment display, or suite of driver-assistance technologies. I recently drove the truck in Southern California. While its lack of a touchscreen and roll-up windows attract the most attention, the more surprising part is how normal the vehicle feels on the road.

The vehicle runs counter to a broader trend in the auto industry sometimes referred to as “trimflation” — the push to increase margins by bundling vehicles with more technology and luxury features. As infotainment systems have grown larger and software has become a bigger selling point, truly bare-bones vehicles have become increasingly difficult to find.

In some ways, Slate is reviving a segment of the market that largely disappeared. For decades, compact pickups such as the Toyota Pickup, Ford Ranger, and Nissan Hardbody served as inexpensive, utilitarian vehicles for young buyers, tradespeople, and anyone who simply needed a truck. But as automakers chased higher margins, pickups grew larger, more luxurious, and substantially more expensive. Today, even many entry-level trucks come loaded with luxuries. Slate is betting there is still demand for a truck that prioritizes affordability over amenities.

That’s not to say buyers can’t customize the vehicle. Slate offers more than 200 accessories, ranging from speakers and seat covers to roof racks and trailer hitches. Eighty percent of them cost under $500. For roughly $5,000, owners can even convert the two-seat pickup into a five-seat SUV. The variety of accessories makes it possible for one Slate to look markedly different from the next.

Slate wants to sell a simple base product and let customers decide which upgrades are worth paying for. The company is also encouraging a do-it-yourself approach as a way to keep costs down. Customers can install wraps, interior accents, lighting upgrades, and other accessories themselves using online video tutorials it’s branding as “Slate U,” or have many upgrades installed for them through a network of more than 3,000 RepairPal-affiliated shops. The car is sold direct-to-consumer, with a fixed manufacturer-set price rather than dealer-negotiated pricing.

For around $500, buyers can add one of the company’s vinyl wraps, dramatically changing the appearance of the vehicle without the cost of a custom paint job. Other accessories, including headlight covers, interior trim pieces, and trailer hitches, are priced closer to what consumers might expect to pay for aftermarket upgrades than factory-installed options.

The nuts and bolts are there, too. Slate’s battery and powertrain warranty runs 10 years or 110,000 miles, putting it at the higher end of the industry standard. It’s engineered for a five-star safety rating and Top Safety Pick. The truck also includes air conditioning, power locks, old-school cruise control, and a back-up camera, suggesting not everything was deemed expendable in the pursuit of affordability. It also has a frunk with a drain in the front for added storage or a makeshift cooler just because.

Whether Slate’s strategy succeeds depends on a simple question: Have automakers spent years adding features consumers don’t value as much as they value lower prices? The signs are encouraging.

According to Deloitte’s 2026 Global Automotive Consumer Study, the most important factors influencing Americans’ choice of a new vehicle brand are quality (58 percent), performance (51 percent), and price (46 percent). Other considerations, including brand familiarity and feature sets, rank much lower. When it comes to the purchase process itself, consumers place an even greater emphasis on value, with nearly two-thirds saying getting a good deal is a top priority.

Slate’s philosophy is reflected in who it believes its customer will be.

Chris Barman, Slate’s President of Vehicles, described the target buyer to me as an “everyday American” looking for value rather than luxury. Many prospective customers, she said, have continued driving older vehicles not because they dislike new cars, but because they have been priced out of the market. Others already rely on their smartphones for navigation, music, and communication, making the absence of a built-in infotainment system less of a sacrifice than it might have seemed a decade ago. “It’s an ecosystem they already know, so they don’t have to learn anything new,” she said. “Why pay for a second screen that’s embedded in the car?”

The truck itself feels surprisingly coherent once you spend time around it. Rather than feeling cheap, it feels intentionally minimal. In both pickup and SUV configurations, its boxy proportions and simple lines evoke the compact trucks and utility vehicles that were common on American roads before pickups ballooned in size and price.

I drove the truck with Barman in the passenger seat around Gardena, California, near the company’s new design studio. On the road, it felt much more like a compact crossover than a traditional pickup truck. In other words, it was closer to my new hybrid Honda CR-V than my aging Toyota Tundra.

Part of that comes from the vehicle’s electric architecture. Despite being rear-wheel drive, the battery pack helps distribute weight more evenly than in front-heavy gas trucks. The result is a vehicle that feels planted and predictable rather than cumbersome.

The performance won’t challenge a Tesla, but it doesn’t need to. The truck accelerates from 0 to 30 mph in about three seconds and reaches 60 mph in roughly eight. For someone used to gas cars, it feels exceptionally peppy. Its turning radius felt tight, visibility was good, and the relatively short wheelbase made it easy to maneuver. Parallel parking didn’t feel like the logistical exercise it can be in many larger, modern pickups.

The hauling capabilities also came in ahead of the company’s earlier projections. The truck can carry up to 1,550 pounds of payload and tow as much as 2,000 pounds. That’s enough for landscaping materials, furniture runs, motorcycles, small utility trailers, or a modest fishing boat. It won’t replace a heavy-duty work truck, but Slate isn’t trying to compete for those customers.

The vehicle’s estimated range is 205 miles, an improvement over the company’s initial 150-mile target but still below what buyers will find in many higher-end EVs. Charging can be done through a standard household outlet, a Level 2 charger, or a DC fast charger capable of adding substantial range in about 30 minutes.

So far, consumers appear interested in the experiment. Slate says it has accumulated roughly 180,000 reservations ahead of production, which is scheduled to begin at the company’s Warsaw, Indiana, factory before customer deliveries start in the fourth quarter. The company expects annual production to reach 150,000 vehicles by the end of 2027.

Whether those reservations ultimately turn into sales remains to be seen. But with new vehicle prices hovering near $50,000 and automakers continuing to load cars with screens, sensors, subscriptions, and software, Slate is testing a surprisingly simple idea: maybe what many Americans want most isn’t more technology. Maybe it’s a new vehicle they can actually afford.

Photography by Rani Molla