Uber gets a permit to test autonomous vehicles on California's public roads, nearly two years after a fatal crash in Arizona, but says it has no plans to do so
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a loop that opened in late 2016, when the California DMV revoked the registrations on Uber's test vehicles and the company moved its self-driving pilot to Arizona rather than seek a permit. After initially refusing, Uber reversed course and applied for the California permit in March 2017, then briefly ran San Francisco tests before the fatal pedestrian strike in Arizona forced a full pause across every city where it was testing.
First-order effects
- Uber now holds the legal right to test autonomous vehicles on California public roads again, ending the regulatory exile that began when the DMV revoked its vehicle registrations.
- By stating it has no plans to test, Uber converts the permit from an active program into an option — the barrier to resuming is now internal, not bureaucratic.
Second-order effects
- Any future resumption of testing no longer requires the fight Uber went through in 2016-2017 with the DMV and the Attorney General's office, lowering the cost of restarting relative to relocating to a more permissive state like Arizona.
- Holding an unused permit keeps Uber positioned against whichever competitors are actively logging California miles under the same DMV framework, without committing capital to catch up.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, permits become strategic assets held even by companies not testing — state approval decoupled from deployment — which shifts the real gatekeeping over AV readiness from regulators to corporate risk appetite after high-profile crashes.
The trend: Autonomous vehicle testing is consolidating around a small set of state permit regimes, where companies hold approvals as options and deploy them only after safety and leadership setbacks have been absorbed.