By Chris Kirkham
LOS ANGELES, Feb 26 (Reuters) – For more than a year, Elon Musk has repeatedly said Tesla is months away from launching a driverless robotaxi service in California – once state regulators give their blessing.
Tesla did nothing to secure that approval in 2025, according to previously unreported state Department of Motor Vehicles records and a state spokesperson. Tesla logged zero miles of autonomous test driving on California roads last year for the sixth year in a row, the records show.
Documenting test miles is critical in California’s regulatory system for robotaxis, which requires companies to progress through a series of permits before being allowed to operate a driverless ride-hailing service such as Alphabet’s Waymo.
Much of Tesla’s $1.5 trillion market value is tied to investors’ belief that it will soon operate a vast fleet of robotaxis and sell millions of autonomous-driving software subscriptions. Operating driverless vehicles in California – the largest U.S. auto market – is a linchpin of those ambitions.
Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor and autonomous-driving expert who has consulted for the California DMV, said Tesla is implying that “they are ready and regulators are not,” while the reality is that “regulators are ready, and they are not.”
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. On an earnings call in October, Musk told analysts that the company is “paranoid about safety” and that it takes a “cautious approach” to new markets. “We probably could just let it loose in these cities,” he said, “but we just don’t want to take a chance.”
So far, Tesla operates only a small pilot robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, which has far fewer regulatory barriers than California.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, the company last July started operating what it called a “robotaxi” service that was not a robotaxi service at all. Instead, it is a chauffeur service with human drivers who use Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” driver-assistance software, which is not fully autonomous, according to the state regulator authorizing the service and Tesla’s disclosures to customers.
In order to operate fully self-driving vehicles in California, like Waymo, Tesla would first need to obtain permits to test and operate driverless vehicles from the state’s DMV and Public Utilities Commission, which regulates commercial ride-hailing.
Tesla so far has only the entry-level DMV permit, which allows testing driverless vehicles only with a human safety monitor in the driver’s seat. A DMV spokesperson said Tesla has not applied for any additional permits.
Tesla would need to log at least 50,000 miles (80,467 km) of autonomous driving on public roads in California with a safety driver before applying for a different permit allowing testing without one, according to proposed DMV regulations expected to be finalized later this year.
Tesla has not logged any miles with state regulators since 2019 and has documented only 562 miles in total since 2016.
Waymo, by comparison, logged more than 13 million testing miles and secured seven different regulatory approvals between 2014 and 2023, when it received approval to charge passengers for rides in driverless robotaxis. Waymo is one of three companies with California permits to commercially operate driverless vehicles and the only one approved to operate a robotaxi fleet anything like what Musk envisions.
In written comments last year, Tesla criticized some of the California DMV’s proposed revisions to autonomous-driving rules, questioning the need for testing on state roads and minimum-mile requirements. The company also complained about “overly burdensome reporting requirements” for crashes and other system failures.
Musk has often suggested California regulations are the main impediment to deploying robotaxis there. On an October 2024 earnings call, he said California has “quite a long regulatory approval process.”
“I’d be shocked if we don’t get approved next year,” he added, “but it’s just not something we totally control.”
(Reporting by Chris Kirkham in Los Angeles; Editing by Brian Thevenot and Matthew Lewis)
