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WASHINGTON — Key Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee, including the panel’s chairman, expressed concern over the absence of trucking policy provisions in legislation on autonomous vehicles awaiting a vote in the Senate.

Two entrepreneurs are introducing an autonomous vehicle and electric cargo bike designed to reduce the costs arising from the last-mile delivery and returns of e-commerce merchandise in urban areas.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage took a step Jan. 17 toward regulating a rapidly emerging automotive technology that in the not-too-distant future could find self-driving cars, trucks and buses operating on Maine roads.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is gathering information about an accident involving a Tesla Inc. Model S sedan that rear-ended a firetruck on a freeway near Los Angeles on Jan. 22, the agency said.

Waymo, the driverless car division owned by Google’s parent company, announced Jan. 22 that it will bring its test program to metro Atlanta.

While it likely will be several more years before autonomous vehicles are common on North State roads, Interstate 5 could be a step closer to accommodating the vehicles by this spring.

Infrastructure needs have emerged as a top priority for most state administrators who received the go-ahead to spend millions of dollars on repairs as well as new construction projects that range from expanding highways to fixing decrepit roads to installing Intelligent Transportation Systems.

An autonomous-driving technology firm plans this year to begin commercial-hauling operations in Arizona using Class 8 trucks that will require nearly no driver control of the vehicle.

It’s a measure of the current frenzy surrounding self-driving cars that a year-old startup can haul in more than $100 million in its first fundraising round.