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Waymo vs. Cruise: Who Led California AV Testing?

Waymo and Cruise led different parts of California AV testing in 2022. Later permit changes and a shift toward deployment mean those figures are historical, not a current leaderboard.
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There was no single winner. In California’s 2022 testing reports, Waymo logged more safety-driver miles, while Cruise logged far more driverless miles and more miles per reported disengagement. The picture changed after Cruise lost its California driverless-testing and deployment permits in 2023; by 2024, statewide testing mileage had fallen as Waymo shifted activity toward deployment.

Who drove more testing miles in 2022?

It depends on whether the comparison is about cars with a safety driver or vehicles operating without one. California DMV figures reported by EE Times in 2023 show Waymo leading the safety-driver category and Cruise leading the driverless category.

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2022 California testing measure Waymo Cruise
Safety-driver miles 2.9 million More than 863,000
Driverless miles Nearly 52,000 More than 546,000
Miles per reported disengagement 17,060 95,900

All figures in the table are California DMV data for 2022, as reported by EE Times in 2023. Across 28 reporting companies, safety-driver testing totaled 4.58 million miles that year. Cruise accounted for about 90% of the 602,000 statewide driverless miles.

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What did “dominate” mean over the longer period?

Waymo’s lead in safety-driver testing was also substantial cumulatively. EE Times’ 2023 analysis of California DMV data counted 17.2 million cumulative safety-driver AV miles through 2022: Waymo had driven over 58% of them and Cruise nearly 23%. Together, they represented 81% of that reported total.

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Those cumulative figures describe safety-driver miles, not the entire universe of AV operation. For 2022 alone, Waymo accounted for over 63% of reported safety-driver miles and Cruise nearly 19%. Cruise’s strength was the driverless category: its more than 546,000 miles greatly exceeded Waymo’s nearly 52,000.

How should miles per disengagement be interpreted?

In the 2022 California DMV figures reported by EE Times in 2023, Cruise recorded 95,900 miles per disengagement and Waymo 17,060. This measure describes how many testing miles a company traveled for each reported disengagement; it is not, by itself, a complete safety ranking. Differences in operating area, conditions, exposure and reporting can affect comparisons, and a miles-per-disengagement figure does not capture every kind of collision or operational risk.

A fuller comparison would also consider collision rates, unplanned stops, obstruction of first responders, vehicle retrievals, fleet size, geography, weather and hours of operation. Comparing one headline testing metric without those dimensions risks treating unlike operating conditions as equivalent.

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Why did California AV testing miles fall after 2023?

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), reporting California DMV figures in 2025, put statewide AV testing at 9.1 million miles in 2023 and 4.5 million in 2024. Those totals cover testing; deployment vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) are not included in the DMV testing total.

SFCTA said the decline likely reflects Waymo shifting activity from testing toward deployment. A lower testing-mile total therefore does not, on its own, show that AVs were traveling fewer miles overall. Testing reports do not provide a complete account of deployment mileage.

San Francisco passenger-trip counts also show how activity moved beyond testing: CPUC data reported by SFCTA in 2025 recorded 3,576 AV passenger trips in March 2022 and 400,731 in December 2024. These are passenger-trip counts, not testing miles, and should not be added to or directly compared with the statewide testing totals.

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What happened to Cruise’s California permits?

California began public-road AV testing under DMV rules in 2014. Waymo received an early safety-driver testing permit that year; Cruise received one in 2015. Cruise became the first company permitted for driverless testing in parts of San Francisco in 2020. By 2022, both companies were authorized to test and operate without a safety driver throughout the city.

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In 2023, both received approval for unrestricted fared passenger service across San Francisco. Later that year, California revoked Cruise’s driverless-testing and deployment permits after a serious injury collision. Waymo continued operating and expanded to parts of San Mateo, Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties. These events explain why the 2022 comparison should not be presented as a current, like-for-like contest.

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What can current public figures establish?

As of June 2025, California had 30 safety-driver testing operators, six driverless-testing operators and three deployment operators, according to DMV figures reported by SFCTA in 2025. These are counts of operators, not a company-by-company mileage ranking.

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SFCTA notes that annual DMV testing reports are limited and do not require deployment VMT, and that public data are insufficient for an objective local assessment. Waymo stopped publicly disclosing San Francisco trip numbers starting in 2025. The available figures establish historical leadership in distinct 2022 testing categories, but they do not establish a verified 2026 California leaderboard.

Why permitting frameworks use more than mileage

SFCTA’s proposed safety-focused framework links expansion to a broader set of performance measures and progressively relaxes geographic, fleet, speed, time and weather constraints as operators demonstrate performance. Its five stages range from initial testing with a safety driver to full commercial driverless operations. That approach reflects why raw miles alone cannot determine whether an AV service is ready to expand.

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