California authorizes expansion of Waymo’s driverless car services to LA, SF peninsula

SAN FRANCISCO– California regulators on Friday allowed Waymo to expand the services of its fleet of robotaxis to Los Angeles and to cities on the peninsula south of San Francisco.

The California Public Utilities Commission has approved Waymo’s application to expand its self-driving taxi business outside of San Francisco starting Friday. The company of Google parent company Alphabet Inc. also operates the service in Phoenix since 2020.

In a post on

Waymo’s cars have become a fairly common sight on the streets of San Francisco, although they are not universally popular and have been known to come to a sudden stop and clog up traffic in the city.

The expansion for Waymo comes after California authorities revoked the license of a rival General Motors robotaxi service after determining that the self-driving cars ferrying passengers throughout San Francisco posed a dangerous threat. A robotaxi from that company, Cruise, ran over a pedestrian who had been hit by another human-driven vehicle, then pinned the pedestrian under one of its tires after coming to a stop.

Officials in San Mateo County and Los Angeles had opposed the expansion and want more local control over how robotaxis can work.