Eric McCarter remembers the first time he operated a forklift truck in France--while sitting behind a desk in California. McCarter used the forklift to move a stack of pallets into a waiting truck using a setup resembling a video gaming rig. He sat behind a steering wheel and pedals that transmitted commands to the forklift thousands of miles away; large screens offered views in front, behind, and to the sides of the vehicle. The vehicle relies on limited artificial intelligence to avoid obstacles and safely come to a stop if the connection between France and the US were to fail. But the AI isn't yet clever enough to let the robotic forklift navigate on its own through an unfamiliar warehouse or take on a new task.

Phantom Auto, a California-based startup focusing on remote vehicle operation, has struck a deal to provide logistics equipment heavyweight Mitsubishi Logisnext Co. with software that enables forklifts to be operated remotely from thousands of miles away. A unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Kyoto-based Mitsubishi Logisnext is the third-biggest company in the $45 billion-plus global market for forklifts. Via their tie-up, Bessemer Venture Partners-backed Phantom Auto and Mitsubishi will offer forklifts that can rove around a warehouse in California, controlled by workers sitting at a desk a continent away. "We're moving warehouse workers into office jobs," Elliot Katz, Phantom Auto co-founder and chief business officer, said in an interview. Because it removes geographic labor restrictions and improves efficiency as drivers can be "teleported" into factories experiencing surges, the software offers the potential to knock 30% or more off forklift operation costs, Katz said.

Like the yard trucks that Phantom Auto is going to put into use with its just-announced partners Autonomous Solutions, Inc and FANUC America Corporation. These productivity vehicles, which are commonly used at places like docks and distribution centers, move semi truck trailers around the yards so they can get loaded or unloaded according to schedule. Today, that means someone has to get in and drive each trailer to its destination. With the new Phantom Auto technology, they can do it on their own. The way Phantom Auto sees autonomous technology working in the near term is that the vehicles will be able to handle most of the tasks they need to do using their sensors and AI.

Quick, think of a California hotbed of technological might. There, in the heart of Sacramento, you will find the curving, brown building where the city's officials are working to woo the self-driving industry. And it seems to have attracted a mate: Today, Sacramento rolls out a partnership with Phantom Auto, a company dedicated to building remote-driving solutions for self-driving vehicles. Because self-driving cars are far from ready to handle all road situations, remote-driving is the not-so-secret secret of the autonomous vehicle industry. "The practical reality is you cannot deploy these vehicles without the human in the loop right now," says Elliot Katz, a co-founder of Phantom Auto.

Computers may be poised to take control of driving in the future, but humans will be backing them for some time yet. Tech giants Waymo and Uber Technologies Inc., auto makers General Motors Co. GM -0.85% and Nissan Motor Co. NSANY -1.16%, and upstarts like Phantom Auto are all developing ways for people to remotely assist their autonomous vehicles during complicated driving situations. "You're going to want as many different backup systems as possible, and human beings performing remote operations is one of those," said Anthony Foxx, former U.S. Transportation Secretary and adviser to venture-capital firm Autotech Ventures. Having human backup will likely help alleviate concerns that regulators and insurance companies have about the new technology, he added. Driverless cars, using sensors, cameras and digital maps, tend to navigate the world based on road markings and rules of the road.

Phantom Auto will provide its remote driving system for Einride's cabless, self-driving T-pod electric trucks. Consumer surveys point to lingering public concerns about the safety of self-driving cars even as the technology launches this year with Waymo's robot-taxi service in Phoenix. Silicon Valley startup Phantom Auto thinks it can lessen that anxiety with a backup driver who can take the wheel remotely when a robot chauffeur needs help. "We're not trying to be an AV player. We want to be a safety solution," Shai Magzimof, Phantom's 27-year-old CEO, founder and inventor of its technology, told Forbes.

Imagine, you're sitting in your autonomous taxi when suddenly the power goes out and the traffic signals in your area no longer function. To keep things moving, traffic officers arrive at the intersection, waving cars through and the vehicles with human drivers move on without too much trouble. The car is confused by the lights being out, the human in the road, and the other cars seemingly driving into the intersection for no reason. Companies are doing their best to train their autonomous vehicle systems but there are too many variables to account for every situation. That's where Phantom Auto comes in.

In many ways this year's CES looked a lot more like an autonomous-car show than a consumer electronics show. There were announcements aplenty from the likes of Ford, Baidu, Toyota, and others about self-driving vehicles, upcoming driving tests, and new partners. In a parking lot across from the Las Vegas Convention Center, several companies offered rides; you could even schedule a ride in a self-driving Lyft through the company's app and get dropped off at one of many casinos on the Strip. A couple of miles away in downtown Las Vegas, an eight-passenger autonomous shuttle bus ran in a loop around Fremont Street. It was part of an ongoing test between commuter transit company Keolis, autonomous-car maker Navya, and the city.

In many ways this year's CES looked a lot more like an autonomous-car show than a consumer electronics show. There were announcements aplenty from the likes of Ford, Baidu, Toyota, and others about self-driving vehicles, upcoming driving tests, and new partners. In a parking lot across from the Las Vegas Convention Center, several companies offered rides; you could even schedule a ride in a self-driving Lyft through the company's app and get dropped off at one of many casinos on the Strip. A couple of miles away in downtown Las Vegas, an eight-passenger autonomous shuttle bus ran in a loop around Fremont Street. It was part of an ongoing test between commuter transit company Keolis, autonomous-car maker Navya, and the city.

In many ways this year's CES looked a lot more like an autonomous-car show than a consumer electronics show. There were announcements aplenty from the likes of Ford, Baidu, Toyota, and others about self-driving vehicles, upcoming driving tests, and new partners. In a parking lot across from the Las Vegas Convention Center, several companies offered rides; you could even schedule a ride in a self-driving Lyft through the company's app and get dropped off at one of many casinos on the Strip. A couple of miles away in downtown Las Vegas, an eight-passenger autonomous shuttle bus ran in a loop around Fremont Street. It was part of an ongoing test between commuter transit company Keolis, autonomous-car maker Navya, and the city.