San Mateo County supervisors are set to vote Tuesday on a resolution that could make it one of the first jurisdictions in the country to require permits for commercial humanoid robots, with rules covering everything from emergency kill switches to fire safety and job displacement. The measure, introduced by Supervisor Ray Mueller, would direct county legal and executive staff to draft a formal ordinance regulating the untethered, autonomous, or semi-autonomous machines increasingly showing up in restaurants, retail stores, warehouses, and other local businesses.
The resolution appears as File #26-627 on the Board of Supervisors' agenda, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post. County documents specify that the ordinance would target mobile humanoid robots deployed across a wide swath of commercial sectors, including hospitality, logistics, security, facilities maintenance, customer service, public information, and even emergency response support. Mueller has said humanoid robots are on their way to the local area, and he wants the county to get ahead of the technology rather than react to it after the fact.
Where State and Federal Rules Fall Short
California already regulates electric vehicles and other autonomous road technology, but the county's own board memo notes that no comprehensive regulatory framework exists at any level of government for humanoid robots operating in publicly accessible spaces. That gap is precisely what Mueller wants San Mateo County to fill, positioning the county as a leader on humanoid-robot regulation before deployments scale up further. He has said he expects state or federal governments to eventually step in with their own rules, but sees no reason for the county to wait.
Mueller has said the idea grew out of discussions about artificial intelligence's impact on the workforce combined with news reports about humanoid robots already in use across Asia. As a member of the San Mateo County Emergency Services Council, he has pointed to a specific hazard: robots that malfunction or behave unpredictably could interfere with building evacuations during emergencies, according to the Daily Post's reporting.
Battery Fires and Kill Switches
A central piece of the proposed permitting process would address thermal runaway battery fires, a phenomenon Mueller says he has seen the impacts of firsthand. These lithium-ion battery fires continue to generate heat after ignition and require specialized firefighting equipment beyond what a standard truck carries. Mueller has proposed that permit fees collected from robot operators could help fund that specialized equipment, arguing the fees should keep local taxpayers from footing the bill themselves.
Under the framework Mueller envisions, humanoid-robot permit applicants would have to demonstrate several things before deployment: that their robots carry no active recalls, show no pattern of catastrophic failure, are equipped with emergency kill switches, and meet both sanitation and ADA accessibility standards. The proposal also calls for a trained on-site human to supervise any permitted robot at all times. Mueller wants County Executive Mike Callagy's office to build out this permitting process, with health and safety, fire preparedness and economic impacts as its core focus areas.
Jobs and the Local Tax Base
Beyond physical safety, Mueller's resolution also takes aim at labor disruption. He has said he wants to determine whether humanoid robots deployed locally end up causing layoffs, since the machines are capable of taking over service jobs typically performed by human workers. His stated concern is that if automation displaces enough workers, the county could face a smaller tax base just as demand for social services grows.
That labor-focused framing is consistent with Mueller's record on the Board of Supervisors. In January 2024, he authored a first-in-state resolution, passed 5-0, establishing a countywide policy that AI technology should supplement rather than replace public sector employees, according to Coastside Buzz. In April 2025, supervisors unanimously passed a follow-up resolution from Mueller requiring county departments to estimate potential AI job displacement and propose new position types before adopting automation software. Mueller also co-sponsored a February 2024 county resolution backing state Senate Bill 915, which sought to return regulatory authority over autonomous vehicles, including safety and vehicle caps, to local governments.
A Regional Robot Boom
The timing of Mueller's push lines up with a fast-moving humanoid robotics industry expanding across the Bay Area. Robotics firm 1X Technologies opened a 58,000-square-foot factory in neighboring Hayward in May, targeting production of up to 10,000 humanoid robots annually, with plans for an expansion facility in San Carlos inside San Mateo County itself. In late July, a San Francisco robotics startup began commercially offering home-cleaning services using humanoid robots at $30 an hour, according to ABC News. Globally, market research firm Omdia found that roughly 15,000 humanoid robots shipped in 2025, with Chinese manufacturers accounting for more than 10,000 of those units while U.S. developers shipped only a few hundred.
That international dimension has already drawn federal attention. In July, the Federal Communications Commission added mobile humanoid robots and connected power components from foreign manufacturers to its Covered List over national security and cybersecurity concerns, a move Hoodline detailed in its report on how the ban puts Bay Area robotics on notice. With manufacturing capacity expanding just miles from San Mateo County's borders and commercial deployments already underway in San Francisco, Tuesday's vote will test whether county-level permitting can move fast enough to get ahead of an industry that shows no signs of slowing down.
