Tesla & EV Driving Test in California: What to Know (2026)

1. The Short Answer: Yes — With One Big Condition

You can take the California behind-the-wheel driving test in a Tesla. You can take it in any electric car — a Chevy Bolt, a Rivian, a Hyundai Ioniq, a Ford Mustang Mach-E, any of them. The question is not whether the car is allowed. The question is whether you drive it the way the examiner needs to see you drive it.

The California Driver Handbook, Section 3, “The Testing Process,” sets out what the test is and what you must bring. The test has two parts: the Pre-Drive Safety Check and the Driving Performance Evaluation. The Handbook says the drive test exists to determine whether you can operate a vehicle safely, exhibit safe driving habits, apply your knowledge of traffic laws in real situations, and compensate for a physical condition. The last clause of that sentence is the one that matters for a Tesla owner, because the Handbook then says, in the “Other Things to Know” section, that the test measures your skill, “not the vehicle’s technology.”

That is the whole tension in one line. A Tesla is a car full of technology that does driving for you: it slows itself down when you lift your foot, it can steer itself, it can park itself, it can keep itself in a lane. The examiner’s job is to watch you do those things. Every feature that does the work for you is either banned outright or a trap that will cost you marks if you lean on it.

There is no statute to fight about here, and that is worth saying plainly because the internet argues about it constantly. No section of the California Vehicle Code bans Teslas from the driving test. No section mentions regenerative braking at all. The test rules come from the DMV’s handbook and administrative practice, not from a “no Teslas” law. The DMV’s on-record position, given to the press when the issue first blew up in 2021, is that people are welcome to take their driving test in a Tesla, that there are no specific criteria for regenerative braking, and that the agency is working to make sure examiners understand how the feature works. That quote comes from the DMV via Teslarati, as reported by InsideEVs — it is not printed on dmv.ca.gov itself, so this page attributes it rather than presenting it as a DMV web page. But it is the only on-record statement the DMV has made, and it points in one direction: the car is welcome; the driver still has to drive.

The other thing to understand before you go further is that the outcome varies by office and by examiner. Drivers report passing in a Model 3 at Walnut Creek with zero demerits, passing in a Chevy Bolt in the San Francisco Bay Area with routine one-pedal driving and no comment at all, and failing in the same kind of car at a different office for the same behaviour. One parent reported calling the Costa Mesa DMV, working through the phone tree, and reaching the manager for the behind-the-wheel test before their son’s appointment. That variance is not a reason to panic — it is the reason the manager-first advice in section 3 exists, and it is the reason this guide tells you to set the car up so that even an examiner who has never sat in a Tesla can follow what you are doing.

Finally, a word on who this guide is for. Most of the people asking this question are parents of teenagers: the 2021 case that defined the topic was a teenager, and the teen questions in the forums are almost always written by a parent. But the same rules apply to an adult taking the test for the first time, an adult retaking it after a failure, and a licensed driver from another state or country taking a California behind-the-wheel test. The car setup is the same. The examiner’s checklist is the same. The only rule that changes by age is the retake wait after a failure, and that is covered in section 10.

2. What the Examiner Checks Before You Drive

Before the car moves, the examiner runs a Pre-Drive Safety Check. This is the first half of the test, and it is the half most Tesla owners under-prepare for, because half the items on the list are controls that live in a touchscreen menu instead of on a stalk or a button. The Handbook lists exactly what the examiner will ask you to locate and demonstrate. If the vehicle does not meet the requirements, the drive test will be rescheduled — you do not get to drive around the problem.

The full list, as printed in Handbook Section 3, is: the driver window must open; the windshield must allow a full, clear, unblocked view for you and the examiner, and cracks may postpone the test; at least two rear-view mirrors, one of them on the left side; right and left brake lights operational; tires with at least 1/32-inch of uniform tread depth, and no donut tire; the foot brake, with at least one inch of clearance between the bottom of the brake pedal and the floorboard when depressed; the horn, designed for the vehicle, in proper working condition, and loud enough to be heard from at least 200 feet; the emergency (parking) brake, set and released; turn and arm signals for a left turn, a right turn, and slowing down or stopping; the windshield wipers, control arm or switch, which you may be required to show working; and the seat belts, all of which must work and be used by everyone in the vehicle.

On a petrol car, most of that is muscle memory. On a Tesla, three items need rehearsal: the parking brake, the wipers, and the defroster. The parking brake is the one that catches people most often, because there is no lever and no pedal. On a car with a gear stalk, you press and hold the button on the end of the right stalk; on any Tesla you can also go to Controls, then Safety, then Parking Brake. Park applies the parking brake automatically, but that is not the demonstration — the examiner wants to see you set it and release it deliberately, so practise the words as well as the motion: “The parking brake is here — I set it like this, and release it like this.” Saying it out loud matters, because the examiner cannot see a touchscreen tap the way they can see a handbrake lever move.

The wipers are the second trap. On older Teslas the wipers are on the left stalk; on the Highland Model 3 the wiper control is a button on the steering wheel plus a touchscreen card, and the wipers can also be set to Auto. Know which one your car has, and know how to run a single wipe and how to turn them on without hunting through a menu. The examiner may ask you to show that they function. If you spend ten seconds staring at the centre screen while the car is parked, that is forgivable. If you do it while driving, it is not — see section 7.

The table below maps every Handbook pre-drive item to where it lives on a Tesla, so you can walk the list in your driveway the night before the test.

Two more Handbook rules frame the whole morning. First, only the examiner may accompany you during the drive test — the exceptions are for training, service animals, and certain law-enforcement situations. Your parent, your instructor, or your friend waits at the office. Interpreters may help during the pre-drive inspection to identify controls, but they may not ride along. Second, the examiner may give two or more instructions at one time to test whether you can understand and follow both — for example, “At the next street, make a left turn, and then at the first intersection make another left turn.” That matters in a Tesla because the second instruction sometimes arrives while you are still thinking about the first, and the car gives you no help with either.

What to bring is also fixed by the Handbook, and it is worth checking off the night before: your instruction permit or driver’s licence if you have one; another California-licensed driver at least 18 years old — 25 for minors — unless you are already licensed; a vehicle that is safe to drive; valid proof of insurance and vehicle registration; and, if you are using a rental car, your name on the rental contract, with the contract not excluding behind-the-wheel drive tests. The rental rule is covered in full in our rental car for the driving test guide, including the trap that a learner’s permit holder cannot get their name on a rental contract in the first place. If you are borrowing a family Tesla, none of that applies — but the insurance and registration still have to be current and in the car.

One more practical point before the car moves: the examiner scores the test on a Driving Performance Evaluation score sheet, and the DMV publishes a sample of that sheet. The Handbook points to dmv.ca.gov/teendrivers for the sample DPE sheet and dmv.ca.gov/seniors for the supplemental and area versions. Reading the sample sheet before test day is the single best way to understand what the examiner is marking — it lists the manoeuvres and the error categories in the examiner’s own words. This page does not reproduce the sheet’s item counts or scoring numbers, because the official sheet itself was not re-read in full for this guide; the sample is linked in the sources so you can read it directly.

3. Regenerative Braking: The Problem That Failed People

Regenerative braking is the feature that defines this whole topic. Here is how it works. Whenever a Tesla is moving and your foot is off the accelerator, regenerative braking slows the car down and feeds the surplus power back to the battery. The deceleration is strong enough that, in normal driving, you can slow to a stop without touching the brake pedal at all — this is one-pedal driving. The car’s brake lights come on when the regenerative deceleration is aggressive enough, for example when you lift your foot fully at highway speed, so the drivers behind you are warned. The amount of deceleration varies with the state of the battery: the Tesla owner’s manual states that regenerative braking may be limited if the battery is cold or is already fully charged.

That is a perfectly good way to drive. It is also, from the examiner’s point of view, a problem. The examiner’s job is to watch you slow the car down by moving your foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal. If you never move your foot, the examiner cannot see you do the thing they are marking. In the worst case, the examiner concludes that the car is doing the braking for you — and the Handbook says the test measures your skill, not the vehicle’s technology.

That is not a hypothetical. In December 2021 a California teenager failed his behind-the-wheel test in a Tesla for exactly this reason. The examiner said he had to show he could move his foot from the power pedal to the brake pedal to slow down, and reportedly recommended that the family bring a different car — in the examiner’s words as reported at the time, a car “that has a motor instead of an actual electric car.” The teenager’s father appealed. The DMV revised the failed test to a pass, and the agency advised staff not to let a drive test hinge on a car’s regenerative braking capabilities. That account comes from electrive, reporting CBS Local’s coverage of the case, and the fail pattern is corroborated by the Tesla Motors Club mega-thread, where parents describe the same fail recorded under the critical-error category “auxiliary equipment use” with the comment “Applicant relied on regenerative braking to slow vehicle.” The exact wording of any internal DMV staff advisory comes from a single news chain, so this page attributes it rather than quoting it as a DMV memo — but the outcome of the case is not in doubt: the fail was overturned.

There is a second, similar story from the same period. A university professor failed his first test in a Model 3, in part because — according to the account he gave to the press — the examiner said the car was not in Chill Mode and the steering was not in Comfort. He failed a second time on regenerative braking. The DMV then told him to rent a petrol car; the rental Camry was rejected at the office, which is consistent with the Handbook’s rental rule that the test-taker’s name must be on the contract; and a third attempt in a different car also failed. That story comes from InsideEVs reporting Teslarati’s account, and it has been questioned as possibly exaggerated — MotorBiscuit notes the account is hard to believe in places. This page reports it as a cautionary anecdote with attribution, not as DMV policy. The useful lesson in it is not the number of failures; it is that a rental car is not a quick escape from a Tesla problem, because the rental rules apply to the test-taker personally.

So what do you actually do about regenerative braking on test day? The answer has three parts, and they work together.

First, drive with your foot. For every slowdown and every stop during the test, visibly move your foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal and press the brake, even when regenerative braking would have done the job alone. Brake early and smoothly. This is the single most important technique on this page. It is also the technique the 2021 case turned on: the examiner wanted to see the foot move, and the driver’s foot did not move. If your foot moves to the brake for every stop, the examiner’s concern disappears, whatever the car is doing underneath you. Practise it for a week before the test until it is automatic, because under test nerves you will drive the way you have been driving — and if you have been one-pedal driving for a year, your foot will not move unless you have retrained it.

Second, set the car so that it behaves as much like a petrol automatic as it can. On an older Tesla, that means the regen level on Low and Stopping Mode on Creep, which makes the car creep forward slowly at a stop like a conventional automatic — your foot must be on the brake to hold it still, which is exactly what the examiner wants to see. The full settings table is in section 4, and it carries a warning that matters more than any other sentence on this page: on Model 3 and Model Y cars built after early 2024, Creep and Roll no longer exist. Only Hold remains. If you own a 2024-or-newer car and someone tells you to “just turn on Creep,” they are giving you advice for a car you do not own. Check your own car’s menu — Controls, then Pedals and Steering, then Stopping Mode — and see what is actually there.

Third, do not try the forum workaround of charging to 100 percent to kill regenerative braking. Forum posters note, correctly, that regen is reduced when the battery is full or cold, and suggest arriving at a full charge so regen is weak. This is forum lore, not advice, and this page mentions it only to warn against it. Regenerative braking is only reduced near a full charge, not eliminated, so the car’s braking feel changes unpredictably; and it does nothing about the examiner’s underlying expectation, which is to see your foot move to the brake. Arrive with a comfortable charge and drive with your foot. That is the whole method.

One more thing about the 2021 case is worth carrying into the test with you. The DMV’s advice, given at the time, was that if a customer has questions about taking a driving test in a particular vehicle, they should ask to speak with a manager before the test. That is not a slogan — it is a practical step. A short conversation with the office manager before your appointment puts your car on the office’s radar, lets the manager confirm that the car is acceptable, and means the examiner who walks out to your Tesla has been told to expect it. One parent in the Tesla Motors Club thread reported doing exactly this at the Costa Mesa DMV, working through the phone tree until they reached the manager for the behind-the-wheel test. Do it a few days before the appointment, not in the car park five minutes before the test.

4. Set the Car Up for Test Day

Do this the night before the test, in your driveway, with the car parked. Every setting below is a real menu path on a Tesla; the paths change with software version and model, so if a path does not match your screen, open the owner’s manual for your car and find the current one. The point of doing it the night before is that you must never be hunting through menus while the examiner is watching, and certainly never while the car is moving.

Two settings in this table need a warning before you read the table itself. The first is the Stopping Mode warning from section 3: Creep and Roll were removed from Model 3 and Model Y cars built after early 2024, and those cars have Hold only. Existing owners keep Creep and Roll — the settings were not removed by a software update — but a 2024-or-newer car does not have them to turn on. The removal date comes from two secondary sources and no Tesla press release was found confirming it, so this page hedges the date and tells you to check your own car. The second warning is about the regen level: older Teslas had a Standard/Low regen setting under Controls, then Driving, then Regenerative Braking; newer Teslas, from 2021 onward, have no regen on/off or Standard/Low control at all, and regenerative braking cannot be turned off. The exact model-year cutover is not certain, so again: check your own car’s menu rather than trusting a model-year label.

A note on the two “Chill” and “Comfort” rows, because honesty matters here. Those recommendations come from a single driver’s account in the press — the university professor case from section 3 — in which an examiner reportedly raised them. There is no Handbook rule requiring Chill Mode or Comfort steering, and the account itself has been questioned. They are included because gentler acceleration and lighter steering genuinely make smooth test driving easier, and because a reader who has heard the story deserves to know what it was about. They are practical advice, not DMV requirements, and no examiner can fail you for driving in Standard acceleration mode.

Also note what is not in the table: there is no setting that turns regenerative braking off on a modern Tesla, and there is no setting that makes the car behave exactly like a petrol car. If you own a 2024-or-newer Model 3 or Model Y, your car has Hold and only Hold, and your braking is one-pedal braking with your foot moving to the brake pedal for every stop. That is fine. The 2021 appeal, the Bolt driver who passed in the Bay Area with routine one-pedal driving, and the Walnut Creek Model 3 pass with zero demerits all show the same thing: the car is not the problem. The footwork is the answer, and the footwork is yours.

5. How Each Tesla Model Behaves on Test Day

Tesla changes its cars by build date, not by model year, and the controls that matter on test day — gear selection, turn signals, parking brake — are different on different cars. The examiner will ask you to demonstrate those controls. If you have to think about where they are, you have already lost marks. Rehearse them in your driveway until they are automatic, and say what you are doing out loud so the examiner can follow you.

Gear selection first, because it is the control most likely to confuse an examiner who has never sat in a Tesla. On a car with a gear stalk — Model 3 and Model Y before the Highland refresh, and older Model S and Model X — the right stalk behind the steering wheel does it: push fully down for Drive, fully up for Reverse, press the button on the end of the stalk for Park, and a light push and hold for Neutral. Always have your foot firmly on the brake before selecting a gear, and visually confirm the gear on the display. On the refreshed Model S and Model X, there is no stalk: the gear is a drive mode strip on the touchscreen — swipe up for Drive, swipe down for Reverse, tap P for Park. The strip appears when you press the brake while parked and is always available under Controls. The backup is a set of P, R, N, and D buttons on the centre console, which you can activate by pressing one, or which activate automatically if the touchscreen is unavailable or the car is in Valet or Tow mode. Only shift between Drive and Reverse below 5 mph. On the 2024-or-newer Model 3, the Highland, there are no stalks at all: the gear is a touchscreen swipe, up for Drive and down for Reverse, and the backup manual gear selector is a strip by the hazard button in the headliner near the rear-view mirror. Tesla has sold a stalk-retrofit kit for 2024–2025 Model 3 cars in the United States — check current availability and price with Tesla before assuming it is available for your car.

Turn signals are the second difference. On stalk cars they are the left stalk, like any car. On the Highland Model 3 they are capacitive buttons on the left of the steering wheel — no stalk at all. The 2025-or-newer Model Y, the Juniper refresh, restored the turn-signal stalk. If you are taking the test in a Highland Model 3, practise signalling through turns and roundabouts before test day, because the buttons are unfamiliar and the examiner will be watching for a signal on every turn and every lane change. A missed signal is a mark; a signal given late because you were looking for the button is also a mark.

A final word on model years, because Tesla buyers get tripped by them constantly. Tesla changes hardware by build date, not by model year, and software updates change menus without changing the car. Two cars with the same model year can have different stalks, different settings, and different menus. Nothing in this guide replaces checking your own car. Open Controls, then Pedals and Steering, and read what your car actually offers. If Creep is there, use it. If it is not, drive with your foot. The examiner is marking you, not your car’s build sheet.

6. Autopilot and FSD: Off — and How to Be Sure They Stay Off

The Handbook’s rule is short and absolute: advanced driver-assistance systems technologies, such as automated parallel parking, lane departure, and adaptive cruise control, are not permitted during the drive test. The reason given is that the test measures your skill, not the vehicle’s technology. Autopilot is Traffic-Aware Cruise Control plus Autosteer. Full Self-Driving (Supervised) steers, brakes, and accelerates. Both are driver-assist systems, and both fall squarely under the ban. There is no argument that Autopilot is “just cruise control” or that FSD is “supervised, so it counts as you driving.” During the test, if the car is doing the driving, you are not — and the examiner will mark it that way.

Turn Autopilot and FSD off before the test starts, and confirm they are off. On a Tesla that means Controls, then Autopilot, and checking that Autosteer and Full Self-Driving are both disabled. Also turn off Auto Shift out of Park, which is a beta feature that guesses Drive or Reverse from sensors and is disabled by default — confirm it is off, because it is a driver-assist guess and the manual warns never to rely on it. Also turn off Summon and Auto Park, and any speed-assist feature that brakes for you. The point is not only to comply with the ban; it is to remove any chance that a feature engages by itself at the worst moment.

The accidental-engagement risk is real and specific. On a car with a gear stalk, Autopilot engages with a double-pull of the right stalk — two quick pulls toward you. A nervous driver, reaching for the gear stalk to shift from Park to Drive, or fidgeting with the stalk at a junction, can engage Autopilot without meaning to. Rehearse not doing that. Know exactly how your car engages Autopilot so you can avoid the gesture, and if Autopilot does engage during the test, disengage it immediately — a tap of the brake pedal or a single pull of the stalk, depending on your car — and keep driving. Do not panic, do not explain at length, and do not argue with the car. The examiner will have seen the car steer itself for a second; a calm, immediate correction is the best recovery available, and it is far better than leaving it engaged while you explain.

What counts as “using” Autopilot is a question people ask, and the honest answer is that the examiner decides. If the car steers itself through a turn, that is use. If adaptive cruise control holds your speed and your following distance, that is use. If the car parks itself, that is use — automated parallel parking is named in the ban. If a safety warning sounds because you drifted, that is not Autopilot use, but it is evidence against you, and it is covered in section 8. The safe line is simple: nothing that steers, brakes, accelerates, or parks the car for you may be active at any point from the moment the examiner gets in until the moment the test ends.

One more distinction is worth making, because it confuses people. Backup cameras and blind-spot monitors are allowed during the test — the Handbook says so. But the Handbook also says they are not a replacement for an actual visual check of your mirrors and blind spots. A camera that shows you what is behind the car is information. A system that steers the car is driving. The line is between seeing and doing, and Autopilot and FSD are on the doing side.

7. The Screen: Backup Camera, Touchscreen, and Sentry Mode

The centre touchscreen is the most visible difference between a Tesla and the car the examiner is used to. Everything about it needs a plan before the test, because the examiner is watching two things at once: whether you know where the controls are, and whether you are looking at the road.

The backup camera is allowed, with a condition. The Handbook says backup cameras and blind-spot monitors may be used on the drive test, but they are not a replacement for an actual visual check of your mirrors and blind spots. On a Tesla the camera image is on the big centre screen. The examiner will watch whether you turn your head and look over your shoulder when reversing, and whether you check your mirrors. If you stare at the screen and never turn your head, the examiner marks observation errors — the camera showed you the picture, but you did not do the visual check the Handbook requires. Use the camera as a supplement, and make the head turn obvious. The same applies to the blind-spot monitor: glance at the screen if you like, but check the mirror and the blind spot with your eyes, and make it visible that you did.

The touchscreen itself is not banned, but hunting through menus while driving is distracted driving, and the examiner will mark observation and control errors for it. The rule is simple: set everything before you move. Mirrors, seat position, climate, defroster location, wipers, hazards, navigation off, music off. Know where the wiper control, the defroster, and the hazard button live without looking. The pre-drive demonstration asks for the wipers and the turn signals; if you can find them instantly while parked, the examiner’s confidence in you goes up before the car moves. If you cannot find the defroster when the windshield fogs during the test, the examiner’s confidence goes the other way.

On the Highland Model 3 this matters more, because the turn signals are steering-wheel buttons rather than a stalk, and the wiper control is a button plus a touchscreen card. Practise the signals until you can hit the correct button without looking down. A signal given two seconds late because you were looking for the button is a mark, and a signal given on the wrong side is worse. The same applies to the hazard button, which on the Highland sits in the headliner strip near the rear-view mirror — find it in your driveway, not on the test route.

Then there is the recording ban, which is the Tesla-specific trap most owners do not know about. The Handbook states that the use of a recording device, including a video or audio recorder, is prohibited during a behind-the-wheel drive test, and that if the recording device cannot be powered off or disabled, the applicant must block it so there is no visual or audio recording during the drive test. A Tesla records by default when Sentry Mode or Dashcam is on. Sentry Mode records video around the car; Dashcam records the road; the cabin camera can record the cabin. Turn Sentry Mode and Dashcam off before the test, and be ready to explain or cover the cabin camera if the examiner asks. This is practical advice derived from combining two verified facts — the Handbook’s recording ban and the way Tesla’s recording features work — not itself a DMV instruction about Teslas. No DMV page tells Tesla owners to switch Sentry Mode off, because no DMV page mentions Teslas at all. But a recording device running during the test is a recording device running during the test, whatever the brand of the car, and switching it off takes ten seconds.

While you are at it, silence the car. Turn off navigation voice prompts, turn off music, and turn off any notification sounds that might draw your eyes to the screen. The examiner is the only voice you need to hear during the test, and the examiner’s instructions sometimes come two at a time. A phone buzzing in the centre console is a distraction you do not need, and a phone mounted on the dashboard with a navigation app running is a second screen competing with the road. Put the phone away.

8. Automatic-Fail Traps — the EV Edition

The examiner’s score sheet lists critical driving errors, and any one of them can end the test. This page does not reproduce the score sheet’s item counts, because the official sheet was not re-read in full for this guide — the sample sheet is linked in the sources. What follows is the practical version: the traps that are specific to a Tesla or an EV, what the examiner sees when they happen, and how to avoid them. The traps that apply to every car — running a red light, failing to stop, hitting a kerb — are covered in our driving test tips guide and in the driving test appointment guide. The traps below are the ones a petrol-car driver never has to think about.

Two of these traps deserve a second look because they are the ones people argue about online. The first is the rolling stop. Regenerative braking changes the feel of stopping: the car decelerates as soon as you lift your foot, which can make a driver lazy about the final part of the stop — the firm press of the brake pedal that brings the car to a complete, held stop at the line. If the car creeps forward through the stop line while you are still deciding whether to brake, the examiner sees a rolling stop. The fix is boring and it works: brake early, stop fully, and hold the stop for a beat. The second is the driver-assist warning. A lane-departure chime is not a fail by itself, and a forward-collision alert is not a fail by itself — but both tell the examiner that you drifted out of your lane or followed too closely, and the examiner is marking the drift and the following distance, not the chime. If a warning sounds, stay calm and keep driving. Never argue with the car, and never argue with the examiner in the middle of the test. Finish the drive, and raise any dispute afterwards, calmly, with the manager.

9. Test-Day Run Sheet

Here is the whole morning, in order. Do the car work the night before so the morning is only about driving.

10. If You Fail: What Happens Next

Failing the behind-the-wheel test is common, and failing it in a Tesla is not a verdict on the car. What happens next depends on why you failed, and the first thing to do is to understand the reason before you book anything.

If you are a minor, the Handbook states the retake rule plainly: minors must wait 14 days to retake a failed behind-the-wheel drive test, not including the day of the failure. Use those 14 days. Practise the foot-to-brake technique until it is automatic, practise the pre-drive demonstration, and consider whether the car setup needs changing — for example, whether the car was in the wrong Stopping Mode, or whether a driver-assist feature was on when it should have been off. For adults, this page prints no retake wait, because the Handbook pages read for this guide state the 14-day rule for minors only, and no adult wait time was verified. If you are an adult retaking the test, ask the office what wait applies to you when you rebook, and do not rely on a number from a forum or a driving-school site.

If the fail was a misunderstanding about the car — most commonly, regenerative braking — you have two options. The first is to ask to speak to a manager at the office, calmly, after the test, and explain what happened. The second is to appeal. The 2021 teen case is the precedent: the family appealed, and the DMV revised the failed test to a pass. An appeal is not guaranteed to succeed, and it is not a substitute for driving well on the retake, but a fail that turned on the car’s regenerative braking rather than on your driving is exactly the kind of fail the DMV has overturned before. Keep the examiner’s score sheet and any notes, write down what happened while it is fresh, and keep the tone factual: what the examiner said, what you did, and what the car did.

The other option, if the Tesla is causing repeated trouble, is to retake the test in a petrol car you know well — a borrowed family car, or a driving-school car. That is a practical fallback, not an admission that the Tesla cannot pass: drivers have passed in Teslas, in Bolts, and in other EVs, and the retake in a different car is simply a way to remove one variable while you work on the driving. If you go the rental route, read our rental car for the driving test guide first, because the rental rules apply to the test-taker personally: your name must be on the contract as an insured driver, the contract must not exclude behind-the-wheel drive tests, and a learner’s permit holder cannot get their name on a rental contract at all. A driving-school car is simpler for a permit holder, because the school supplies the car and the licensed instructor.

One thing not to do after a fail: do not buy a different car for the retake. The car is rarely the reason for a fail, and the driving is almost always the reason. Fix the driving, set the car up correctly, and retake the test in the car you already know. If the car truly is the problem — a Highland whose signal buttons you cannot use reliably, a Cybertruck whose size makes the manoeuvres hard — then borrowing a simpler car for one morning is a reasonable choice, and it costs nothing.

11. What Other Guides Get Wrong

There is no dedicated, authoritative, up-to-date guide to taking the California driving test in a Tesla. The top results for this question are a news cycle from 2021, forum threads, and generic gas-car guides. That is the gap this page fills, and it is also why so much wrong advice is circulating. Here is what the other pages get wrong, so you can recognise it when you see it.

“Put it on Low and Creep — the car becomes like a petrol car.” This is the most repeated piece of advice in the Tesla forums, and it is wrong for a large and growing share of Teslas. Low regen and Creep existed on older cars. On Model 3 and Model Y cars built after early 2024, Creep and Roll no longer exist — only Hold remains — and on Teslas from 2021 onward there is no regen level setting at all. Telling a 2024 owner to “just turn on Creep” sends them looking for a menu that does not exist. The correct advice is in section 4: use Creep if your car has it, and drive with your foot if it does not.

“Teslas are banned from driving tests.” False. No California law bans Teslas from the test, no DMV rule bans them, and the DMV has said people are welcome to take the test in a Tesla. The confusion comes from the 2021 fails, which were about regenerative braking, not about the car being a Tesla. A fail is not a ban.

“Charge to 100 percent and regenerative braking turns off.” False. Regenerative braking is reduced when the battery is full or cold, not eliminated. The car’s braking feel changes unpredictably near a full charge, and the trick does nothing about the examiner’s expectation that your foot moves to the brake. Arrive with a comfortable charge and drive with your foot.

The Arizona fail presented as California policy. In 2024 a Model Y driver in Arizona failed a road test over one-pedal driving and suspected FSD use, and the Arizona motor vehicle division later granted the licence while saying it was evaluating whether to ban Teslas from road tests. That is Arizona, not California, and it is not California DMV policy. A writer who imports it as a California rule is misleading the reader.

The “FSD fails a DMV test” story. A 2024 trade-magazine piece reported an FSD system failing a DMV-style test in Santa Barbara. That was a staged demonstration by an advocacy group, the Dawn Project — not an official DMV examination. It says nothing about what happens in a real California behind-the-wheel test, and it should never be presented as an official result.

“The DMV rents you a car for the test.” There is no verified DMV car-rental programme. The claim traces to a single 2021 anecdote in which a driver said the DMV told him to rent a petrol car, and no price or programme could be verified on dmv.ca.gov. This page prints no rental price and makes no claim that the DMV rents cars. If you need a car for the test, the options are a borrowed car, a driving-school car, or a rental under the Handbook’s contract rule — covered in our rental car guide.

Generic driving-test guides with zero EV content. The most complete generic guides — the ones that list documents, the pre-drive check, and the test-day workflow — are solid for a petrol car and useless for a Tesla owner. They say nothing about regenerative braking, nothing about Autopilot, nothing about Creep mode, nothing about the parking brake, and nothing about Sentry Mode. A Tesla driver who follows one of them walks into the test unprepared for the three things that actually decide the outcome. That is why this guide exists, and why it maps every Handbook rule onto the car’s actual controls.

A pass rate quoted as a DMV statistic. Some California driving sites print a figure of about 40 percent of first-time applicants failing, or about 60 percent passing, as if it were a DMV statistic. No DMV source was found for any pass or fail rate. This page prints no pass rate at all.

12. Ten Mistakes That Cost People Their Test

1. Driving to the test on one-pedal braking alone. If your foot never moves to the brake pedal, the examiner cannot see you brake. Move your foot for every slowdown and every stop, even when regen would do it alone.

2. Leaving Autopilot or FSD on. The Handbook bans driver-assist systems during the test. Turn them off before the test starts, and know the accidental-engagement gesture on your car so you do not trigger it by mistake.

3. Never rehearsing the parking brake. The examiner will ask you to set and release it. On a Tesla there is no lever — it is a stalk button or a touchscreen path. Rehearse it in your driveway and say it out loud.

4. Hunting through the touchscreen while driving. Set the mirrors, the climate, the wipers, the defroster, and the hazards before you move. If you are tapping menus while the car is moving, the examiner is marking distracted driving.

5. Staring at the backup camera instead of turning your head. The camera is allowed, but it is not a replacement for a visual check of your mirrors and blind spots. Turn your head, check the mirrors, and make it visible that you did.

6. Arriving with Sentry Mode or the dashcam recording. Recording devices are prohibited during the test. Switch both off before the examiner reaches the car, and be ready to cover the cabin camera if asked.

7. Taking the test in a car you have not set up. The settings table in section 4 takes five minutes the night before. Doing it in the DMV car park, with the examiner waiting, is how settings get missed and how tests get failed.

8. Trusting the “Low and Creep” advice on a 2024-or-newer car. Creep does not exist on Model 3 and Model Y cars built after early 2024. Check your own car’s menu instead of trusting a forum post written for a 2019 car.

9. Rolling through stop signs. Regenerative braking makes it easy to slow without stopping. Brake early, come to a complete stop, hold it for a beat, and then move off. A rolling stop is a critical error.

10. Arguing with the examiner in the car. If the examiner raises regenerative braking, or anything else about the car, stay calm, finish the drive, and raise it afterwards with the manager. The 2021 appeal shows that a regen-based fail can be overturned — but only if you keep the dispute out of the test itself.

Sources

• California Driver Handbook, Section 3, “The Testing Process” — the behind-the-wheel test, the pre-drive safety check list, the ADAS ban, the recording ban, the 14-day minor retake rule, and the rental-contract rule — dmv.ca.gov
• DMV Driving Test — the test’s purpose and the Driving Performance Evaluation, with the sample score sheet linked from the Handbook — dmv.ca.gov
• Book a behind-the-wheel test — dmv.ca.gov
• California Vehicle Code §12500(a) (a person may not drive a motor vehicle upon a highway unless they hold a valid driver’s licence) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
• California Vehicle Code §12509 (instruction permits: 15 years and 6 months minimum age; issued within 12 months of application; valid up to 24 months; supervision by a California-licensed driver 18 or older whose privilege is not on probation; amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 295 (AB 2956), effective January 1, 2023) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
• Tesla owner’s manuals — regenerative braking, Stopping Mode (Creep, Roll, Hold), Apply Brakes When Regenerative Braking Is Limited, gear selection on stalk and stalkless cars — tesla.com
• Tesla Support — Stopping Mode video for Model 3 and Model Y — tesla.com
• electrive — “Teen first fails driving test due to Tesla regenerative braking” (December 13, 2021; updated November 14, 2025), reporting CBS Local — the 2021 teen fail, the appeal, the pass revision, and the staff advisory — electrive.com
• InsideEVs — “DMV Evaluators Make It Impossible For Tesla Driver To Pass Driving Test” (2021), reporting Teslarati — the professor case and the DMV’s “welcome in a Tesla” statement — insideevs.com
• Tesla Motors Club — “CA DMV failing Tesla car for behind the wheel drive test” mega-thread (running since 2021) — first-hand fail and pass reports, the “auxiliary equipment use” fail code, and the manager-first advice — teslamotorsclub.com
• Notebookcheck — “Model Y fails driver in license road test over FSD and regen braking” (updated October 5, 2026) — the Arizona case, cited as other-state context only, not California policy — notebookcheck.net
• Full research brief with the verified-facts table, SERP top-10, five-method gap analysis, and the could-not-verify list: deep-tesla-ev-driving-test.md (November 2, 2026). No verbatim Reddit or Quora quotes were retrievable in the research session, and no live Google People Also Ask panel was captured — no FAQ on this page is labelled as a Reddit, Quora, or PAA quote. The DL-955 score-sheet item counts were not re-read on dmv.ca.gov for this guide and are not printed here; the sample sheet is linked from the Handbook.

Last verified against dmv.ca.gov: November 2, 2026. Statutes, forms, and fees change — confirm current rules and the current fee schedule on dmv.ca.gov before your visit.