Official Inspection Station offered a test run of emissions inspections in San Antonio.
Zachary-Taylor Wright/MySA
In just four months, San Antonians may find themselves stuck behind a wall of angry drivers anxious to learn whether a new vehicle inspection will rack up mechanic costs. It’s part of a new requirement that adds Bexar County to a growing list of Texas metros required to issue emissions inspections. MySA got a first look at the process and some of the potential pitfalls of a first-year program with little momentum.
Beginning November 1, vehicles registered in Bexar County will be required to pass an emissions inspection when renewing registration. A simple check engine light is an automatic failure, and several mechanical issues – whether the dashboard is illuminated or not – could result in a failed inspection.
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In late June, Official Inspection Station hosted a test run, demonstrating how impactful this new process could be for San Antonio drivers hoping for a quick run-through.
“In my experience, when it’s in the heat of the summer and you have a line of inspections, people don’t have a lot of patience. They’re already on edge,” Charissa Barnes, CEO of Texas Tag & Title and Official Inspection Station, told MySA, estimating the process will currently take her team about 20 minutes per vehicle. “We will get that [time] down because we’re known to do fast inspections, but this is our first look at it too.”
With nearly 1.7 million vehicles registered in Bexar County in 2024 – the most recent figures published by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles – some 142,000 vehicles could need an emissions inspection each month. However, the overall figures are expected to have climbed to nearly 2 million in the past two years, increasing the potential for drivers seeking inspections.
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The number of locations certified to conduct emissions inspections has not increased as quickly, though. The Texas Department of Transportation currently lists just over 250 sites in Bexar County.
In comparison, DPS notes that nearly 300 companies are certified to perform emissions inspections in Travis County, which has a smaller population than Bexar County by more than 500,000 people. According to Barnes, there are roughly 350 inspection stations. Yet Austin needs another 150 to 250 emissions inspection sites to make the process more manageable, Barnes says.
That paints a harrowing picture for Day 1 across San Antonio. Even more alarming, Barnes – who has worked in the auto-inspection industry for decades – says that about 20% to 30% of the companies certified to perform these inspections may not be operating on November 1.
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“There are people who intend to join the program, but they sit back on the sidelines, and they wait to see how things are going to shake out. Or they have applied, and they have part of the process, not the entire process,” Barnes says. “We have heard from some of our colleagues that they don’t intend to offer inspections any longer.”
During the test run of the emissions inspections – a quicker run-through, given that the Texas database isn’t live and uploads can add considerable time – Cesar Porras, a Tier I field services technician lead with Worldwide Environmental Products, told MySA that most failures among early adopters were due to sensors needing to be reset. But he said a decent chunk of San Antonio drivers could find themselves with a failing grade.
“We expect about less than one-third of the vehicles to fail,” Porras told MySA. “It’s because we have a lack of maintenance for so many years that we didn’t take care of.”
Is Texas still required to have a vehicle inspection?
Back in 2023, Texas Rep. Cody Harris (R-Palestine) successfully passed House Bill 3297, ending decades of mandatory safety inspections in Texas. In his bill analysis for the Homeland Security & Public Safety Committee, Harris said the change had been a long time coming.
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“Most states have done away with their mandatory vehicle inspection programs since the federal government ended the program requirement in 1976,” Harris wrote. “The impact of the mandatory vehicle safety inspection program on road safety is not strong enough to justify the program’s existence.”
But Bexar County will join the ranks of 17 other counties required to conduct annual emissions testing as a result of the Environmental Protection Agency’s report on the county’s air quality. San Antonio will round out a list of essentially every large city in the Lone Star State required to conduct emissions inspections, including Dallas, Houston, Austin and El Paso.