Nuro recorded far more human interventions per mile than Waymo or Zoox in 2025, even as Uber pushes to deploy 20,000 driverless vehicles.
State records from the California Department of Motor Vehicles show that Nuro’s self-driving system required human intervention once every 646 miles during 2025, a sharp deterioration from the 2,044 miles it managed between interventions the year before. Over the same period, Waymo’s vehicles traveled nearly 19,234 miles before a human needed to take the wheel, while Zoox reached an average of 60,682 miles — figures that both companies improved upon from 2024.
The discrepancy in total testing miles is equally stark. Nuro logged just 157,561 miles on California roads last year, down from 210,544 the year prior and a fraction of the mileage accumulated by its rivals. Waymo reported 3,346,709 miles; Zoox logged 1,213,646.
The data, compiled and analyzed by the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog, arrives at a delicate moment for Uber. The ride-hailing giant has announced plans to put robotaxis powered by Nuro’s technology on the road by the end of this year, beginning in San Francisco, in partnership with the electric vehicle maker Lucid. At the same time, Uber has backed a California ballot measure that would limit the legal liability of both its human drivers and its autonomous vehicles by restricting injured victims’ access to contingency-fee attorneys.
“It’s frightening that Uber would seek to deploy robotaxis with its technology partner Nuro having done so little testing and with such unsuccessful results,” said Justin Kloczko, director of the privacy and technology program at Consumer Watchdog. “Only under the new limited liability rules that Uber proposes could it get away with deploying such unproven technology. Californians shouldn’t be the guinea pigs for Uber’s reckless experiment.”
The stakes of autonomous vehicle testing are not merely competitive. A landmark study by the RAND Corporation concluded that fully autonomous vehicles would need to be driven hundreds of millions — and in some cases billions — of miles to statistically demonstrate their safety with respect to fatalities and serious injuries.
Under California regulations, companies holding autonomous vehicle testing permits are required to report disengagements, defined as instances in which a human safety driver overrides the vehicle’s autonomous system due to a technical failure or other concern. The D.M.V. is currently developing updated regulations that would govern how such data is collected and disclosed going forward.
Nuro recorded 244 disengagements in 2025, up from 103 the previous year, while Waymo logged 174 and Zoox just 20 — despite both driving far greater total distances.
“This data isn’t exactly a vote of confidence for the new Uber-Lucid-Nuro robotaxi that hopes to roll out in San Francisco later this year,” Mr. Kloczko said.
Representatives for Uber and Nuro did not immediately respond to requests for comment.