The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) issues driver licenses and ID cards, registers and titles vehicles and boats, enforces motor-vehicle laws, and regulates the motor vehicle industry while increasingly modernizing services with technology-driven identity and service platforms[2][3]. The DMV’s mission is to “license drivers, register vehicles, secure identities, and regulate the motor vehicle industry in pursuit of public safety,” and its 2021–2026 strategic plan emphasizes customer experience, innovation, and technology modernization[2]. Created from early vehicle laws and formalized by the Vehicle Act of 1915, the DMV evolved from a small motor-vehicle department to a large statewide agency headquartered in Sacramento with hundreds of field offices and thousands of employees administering driver testing, vehicle registration and industry licensing[3][1]. Over the decades it added enforcement, investigative units and administrative adjudication to handle fraud, odometer tampering and dealer regulation[3]. Key achievements include building one of the nation’s largest identity-issuance systems—serving tens of millions of Californians—and developing programs for driver safety, impaired-driving reduction and risk-based monitoring of high‑risk drivers[6][2]. In recent years the DMV has modernized operations by adopting cloud and SaaS platforms to scale services, reuse application designs, and accelerate program delivery across licensing, disabled placards, employer pull‑notice and registration systems[6]. Today the DMV combines extensive field operations (local offices and telephone centers) with enterprise governance, policy, enforcement, and research teams that publish performance reports and legislative briefings[4][1]. Notable aspects for business and technology audiences are its role as a large identity provider in the public sector, its regulatory authority over autonomous vehicle testing and industry licensing, and an active digital-transformation program leveraging cloud-native SaaS to reduce friction and improve scalability[2][6]. Challenges that persist include