California DMV self-driving report: Waymo and GM lead with 63 disengagements over 352K+ miles and 105 disengagements over 131K+ miles, respectively
So how'd everyone do? — California's Department of Motor Vehicles released its annual autonomous vehicle disengagement report today.
Context & Ripple Effects
The California DMV's annual disengagement report has become the industry's public scoreboard, and this year's filing confirms a two-horse race at the top. Waymo is extending the improvement curve it disclosed last year, when its disengagement rate per 1K miles fell from 0.8 to 0.2 even as total miles climbed — 63 disengagements across 352K+ miles keeps it on roughly that trajectory.
GM's 105 disengagements over 131K+ miles is the notable second-place showing, giving the automaker a credible claim to being Waymo's nearest rival by the state's own metric. The contrast with the rest of the field is stark: Tesla's four-car, 550-mile California test reported disengagements at a rate orders of magnitude worse per mile.
First-order effects
- Waymo locks in its position as the benchmark-setter in California testing, while GM converts its Cruise program into the only other name with volume-plus-reliability numbers worth citing.
Second-order effects
- Laggards like Tesla, whose tiny mileage totals and high per-mile disengagement rate look worse against Waymo's scale, face pressure to either ramp California testing or argue the metric doesn't measure what matters.
Third-order effects
- The report risks hardening into a PR contest where companies optimize for low disengagement counts rather than hard routes — a weakness the later data confirms, when logged test miles collapsed sharply by 2024 (down 50% YoY, driverless miles down 83%), suggesting the metric tracked marketing posture as much as readiness.
The trend: California's annual disengagement filings turned autonomous-vehicle progress into an annual public ranking, one that flattered early leaders like Waymo while masking how little sustained driverless testing most entrants ultimately did.