Waymo says California regulators have signed off on the biggest expansion of its robotaxi service yet, covering 18 counties from Sonoma down to San Diego.

The California Public Utilities Commission approval clears Waymo to charge for fully driverless rides across the whole Bay Area and Los Angeles, and to open two brand-new markets in Sacramento and San Diego.

Waymo announced the decision on X Friday afternoon: “Big news for the Golden State.” The company said the rollout “will be gradual and guided by our safety framework.”

The approval runs through Waymo’s Advice Letter No. 4, filed with the CPUC back on January 28. Regulators suspended it through September 25 for further review, and Waymo filed a supplemental letter in May covering unaccompanied minors and rider procedures during service disruptions like the PG&E outage that hit San Francisco last December.

That’s nearly seven months of regulatory grinding for one filing. It cleared today.

The letter covers 12 counties in Northern California (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo) and six in the south (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura). That’s most of the state’s population.

The operating conditions Waymo asked for are just as wide: all speed limits, freeways, highways, city streets, rural roads, parking lots, driveways, and rail crossings, day and night, in rain, fog, and hail. The only real carve-out is widespread snow or ice.

Both the Jaguar I-Pace and the new Ojai robotaxi running Waymo’s sixth-generation Driver are covered.

Source link