Elon Musk's "pie in the sky" promises face another setback: regulators confirm that Tesla has never conducted Robotaxi autonomous driving tests in California over the past six years.

IT Home reported on February 27 that, according to Reuters today, although Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed “Tesla is only a few months away from launching Robotaxi autonomous taxi services in California,” the reality is quite different.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles records show that Tesla has not taken any substantial actions in 2025. Data indicates that the company’s autonomous driving testing mileage on California roads has been zero for the sixth consecutive year in 2025.

In California’s regulatory framework, recording testing mileage is crucial for the operation of Robotaxi companies. The framework requires companies to gradually pass through a series of licenses to be permitted to operate autonomous ride-hailing services like those of Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet.

To operate Robotaxi services in California like Waymo, Tesla first needs to obtain permits for testing and operating autonomous vehicles from the state’s DMV and the Public Utilities Commission, which oversees commercial ride-hailing.

However, Tesla currently only holds a basic permit from the DMV, which allows testing of autonomous vehicles with a human safety supervisor in the driver’s seat. A DMV spokesperson stated that Tesla has not applied for any additional permits.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and an autonomous driving expert (who previously served as a consultant for the California DMV), pointed out that Tesla suggests to others “they are ready, but the regulators are holding them back,” while the reality is “the regulators are ready.”

During the earnings call in October last year, Musk told analysts that the company “places extreme importance on safety” and takes a “cautious approach” to entering new markets, stating, “We might have been able to just roll out in these cities, but we don’t want to take risks.”

According to proposed regulations from the DMV expected to be finalized later this year, Tesla must complete at least 50,000 miles (approximately 80,467 kilometers) of autonomous driving testing in safety driver mode on California public roads before applying for permits that allow testing without a safety driver.

However, data shows that since 2019, Tesla has never recorded any autonomous driving testing mileage with the California regulators, and the total recorded mileage since 2016 is only 562 miles (approximately 904.5 kilometers).

In contrast, Waymo recorded over 13 million miles (approximately 20.9 million kilometers) of testing mileage between 2014 and 2023 and received seven different regulatory approvals, ultimately being allowed to charge passengers for its Robotaxi services in 2023.

Currently, Waymo is one of three companies holding a commercial operating permit for autonomous vehicles in California and is the only company authorized to operate a fleet of robot taxis on the scale envisioned by Musk.

In written comments last year, Tesla criticized some proposed revisions to the autonomous driving rules by the California DMV, questioning the necessity of testing on state roads and the minimum mileage requirements. The company also complained that the “reporting requirements regarding collisions and other system failures are overly burdensome.”

Musk frequently implies that California regulations are the main obstacle to deploying robot taxis locally. During the earnings call in October 2024, he stated that California has “a rather lengthy regulatory approval process.” “If we are not approved next year, I would be very surprised,” he said, “but this is not something we can fully control.”