How California Permits Robotaxis: The DMV and the CPUC

California, where most of the industry is based, splits the job in two. The Department of Motor Vehicles licenses the vehicles: a permit to test with a safety driver, a permit to test without one, and a deployment permit to operate for the public. The Public Utilities Commission licenses the business of carrying passengers for money, in stages from free rides with a driver to paid rides with none. A company needs the right permit from each before it can charge a fare in a driverless car.

Testing permits come with reporting duties that made California the field's public record: annual disengagement reports listing every takeover by a safety driver, and collision reports within ten days of any crash. Dozens of companies have held permits over the years; the disengagement tables, for all their flaws, are how the public first learned who was actually on the road.

Cities have no formal role, and that has been the friction. San Francisco's transportation, fire and police agencies argued through 2023 that robotaxis were blocking emergency vehicles and that the state was expanding them over local objections. The CPUC approved round-the-clock paid service for Waymo and Cruise anyway in August 2023, after a hearing that ran for hours; Cruise's suspension two months later vindicated some of the fears and reset the politics. Since then the state has considered giving local governments more say, and operators have built direct lines to first responders.

The DMV can suspend or revoke a permit when it judges a vehicle unsafe or a company untruthful, and did both to Cruise in October 2023, citing the withheld video of the dragging incident. The CPUC followed by suspending Cruise's passenger permit. The episode established that in California the permits are conditional in practice, not only on paper.