A Reuters investigation published today — based on previously unreported California DMV records and a state spokesperson — reveals that Tesla logged zero miles of autonomous test driving on California public roads in 2025. That makes it six years in a row. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has spent more than a year telling investors and analysts that driverless robotaxis in California are just “months away.”

The Fact: Tesla logged zero miles of autonomous test driving on California public roads in 2025 — the sixth consecutive year with no recorded miles, per state DMV records.
The Comparison: Waymo documented more than 13 million testing miles and earned seven separate regulatory approvals between 2014 and 2023 before launching its commercial driverless service.
The Permit Gap: Tesla holds only California’s entry-level DMV permit, which requires a human safety monitor in the driver’s seat. It has not applied for any additional permits.
The Buyer Impact: If you’re valuing Tesla stock based on its California robotaxi ambitions, this data is something you need to weigh carefully.

Tesla’s California Permit Status Is Years Behind Waymo

California’s regulatory path to operating a commercial driverless ride-hailing service requires companies to work through a series of permits with both the state DMV and the California Public Utilities Commission. Tesla currently holds only the most basic DMV permit — the one that requires a human safety monitor in the driver’s seat at all times. A DMV spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that Tesla has not applied for any additional permits. Under proposed DMV regulations expected to be finalized later this year, Tesla would need to first log at least 50,000 miles (80,467 km) of autonomous driving on public California roads with a safety driver before applying for the next permit tier. Tesla has not logged any miles with state regulators since 2019. Its total documented mileage since 2016: 562 miles.

Waymo, by contrast, logged more than 13 million testing miles and secured seven different regulatory approvals between 2014 and 2023. That decade of documented work is what earned it the only commercial driverless ride-hailing permit in California. Two other companies hold permits to operate driverless vehicles commercially in the state, but neither operates anything like the robotaxi scale Musk has described for Tesla.

Musk’s “Regulatory Barrier” Narrative Doesn’t Hold Up

Musk has consistently framed California’s regulators as the primary obstacle to Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions there. On an October 2024 earnings call, he described the state’s approval process as “quite a long regulatory approval process” and said he’d “be shocked if we don’t get approved next year.” That next year is now 2025 — which has come and gone with zero miles logged and zero permits applied for.

Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor and autonomous-driving expert who has consulted for the California DMV, told Reuters that Tesla is implying “they are ready and regulators are not,” while the reality is that “regulators are ready, and they are not.”

In written comments last year, Tesla criticized the DMV’s proposed rule revisions, objecting to minimum-mile requirements and calling crash and system-failure reporting requirements “overly burdensome.” That position — that Tesla shouldn’t have to play by the same documentation rules as every other autonomous vehicle company — has not persuaded California regulators to move faster.

The Bay Area “Robotaxi” Is Not a Robotaxi

Tesla launched what it called a “robotaxi” service in the San Francisco Bay Area last July. Reuters confirmed it is a chauffeur service with human drivers using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assistance software — which is not fully autonomous — a fact confirmed by the state regulator authorizing the service and Tesla’s own customer disclosures. The Austin service, launched in June 2025 with safety monitors present, operates under Texas’s far more permissive autonomous vehicle framework. California, the largest U.S. auto market, requires documented miles. Tesla has 562 to show for ten years of effort.

On an October 2024 earnings call, Musk told analysts that Tesla is “paranoid about safety” and takes a “cautious approach” to new markets, adding: “We probably could just let it loose in these cities, but we just don’t want to take a chance.” That framing is hard to reconcile with six consecutive years of zero California test miles and no permit applications filed.

EVXL’s Take

I’ve tracked Tesla’s autonomy promises since before the original “Full Self-Driving” feature was sold to customers in 2019 — a feature that took years to approach the capability its name implied. When Musk declared FSD Unsupervised “pretty much solved” in December 2025, the obvious follow-up was: solved for where, and under which regulatory framework? Austin operates under Texas rules, which is a completely different playing field than California. The Reuters investigation answers that question with the bluntest data possible.

The 562-mile total since 2016 is the number that should give investors pause. Waymo spent a decade documenting 13 million miles to earn its California permits. Tesla has logged 562 miles and is objecting to the documentation requirements. That’s not a regulatory problem. That’s a preparation problem.

Much of Tesla’s $1.5 trillion market value is tied to the robotaxi thesis, with California as its linchpin. Here’s the math on why any timeline is unrealistic in the near term: Tesla first needs to start logging miles with a safety driver. Under proposed DMV rules, it needs at least 50,000 of them before applying for the next permit tier. If Tesla began testing tomorrow and logged miles aggressively — say at Waymo’s early pace — DMV processing alone typically takes six to twelve months per approval, and there are multiple permit stages between where Tesla is now and a commercial driverless service. Best case, we’re looking at late 2027. More realistically, 2028 or later, assuming Tesla actually starts the process this year.

The supervised California service that launched last July is the ceiling for now — and it’s a human-driven one. Until Tesla files for permits and starts logging miles in California, every Musk statement about California robotaxis being “months away” is marketing, not a roadmap.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.