Autonomous cabs: Waymo receives operating license for the Bay Area
US robotaxi start-up Waymo has been given the green light by California's authorities to expand its autonomous cab service for the greater San Francisco area.
An autonomous cab from Waymo in San Francisco.
Alphabet subsidiary Waymo has received approval from the State of California to expand its Robotaxi operations to more areas of the Bay Area around San Francisco and further south, including San José. "We are very pleased to announce that the CPUC has approved our application to operate our fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in the South Bay and most of San Jose!" the company wrote in a post on X on Monday.
Despite the approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), however, Waymo has no immediate plans to expand its services in the San Francisco Bay Area. "While this will not change our operations in the near future, we look forward to bringing the benefits of Waymo One to more areas of the Bay Area in the future," the company continued.
The Reuters news agency quotes a company spokesperson: "We want to bring Waymo One to more parts of the Bay Area, and any expansion of the service will happen methodically over time." There were "no immediate plans or timeline to share". He did not give reasons for the delay. One possible explanation is the currently still limited number of vehicles.
Recall of almost the entire fleet
Waymo currently offers its robot cab service in the major US cities of Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin. The start-up's fleet currently comprises 1,500 vehicles and offers more than 250,000 paid rides per week. A further 2,000 fully autonomous vehicles are to be added to the fleet by 2026.
Last week, it was announced that Waymo is recalling more than 1,200 self-driving vehicles in order to update the software. This affects almost the entire fleet. The aim is to eliminate the risk of collisions with parked cars and other stationary objects. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into Waymo last year, which it expanded shortly afterwards following further incidents. The investigation is still ongoing.
Competitive market
The approval for Waymo to expand its operations in California comes at a time when other companies are pushing into the market for autonomous cabs. As recently as mid-April, Volkswagen announced that it would be putting self-driving cars on the roads in the USA from 2026 in collaboration with Uber. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, on the other hand, declared that Tesla intends to launch its own robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, at the end of June –, initially with 10 to twenty Model Y cars.
However, Tesla's autopilot has come under scrutiny from the authorities following a number of accidents. The NHTSA wants to clarify how it deals with poor conditions. 2.4 million vehicles are affected. The road safety authority also sees unanswered questions regarding Tesla's planned cab service with autonomous cars.
Videos by heise
Starting point California
San Francisco has a special significance for Waymo. This is where the Alphabet subsidiary launched its round-the-clock robotaxi service in mid-2023. However, tensions soon arose over the autonomous vehicles. These had been approved by the relevant federal authority in the face of opposition from the city authorities. San Francisco filed a lawsuit against this in January 2024.
There were also repeated incidents. At the beginning of February 2024, a Waymo vehicle hit a cyclist, who was slightly injured. Just a few days later, the dispute reached a new level: a crowd of people damaged and graffitied an empty Waymo robot cab in the middle of a busy street in San Francisco, eventually setting it on fire to applause.
The events probably contributed to Waymo's application to expand its robotaxi operations to the Californian metropolis of Los Angeles initially being halted by the regulatory authorities. After some regulatory hacking, the company then began offering rides in Los Angeles, initially to a limited group of customers. In the summer of 2024, Waymo also tested driverless robot cabs on freeways in San Francisco. In November, Waymo then expanded its robotaxi service in Los Angeles to 24/7. In the future, the company also wants to bring its autonomous cabs to the streets of Washington, D.C. and New York.
(akn)
