Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo said on Monday it received approval from California to expand its robotaxi operations in more areas of the San Francisco Peninsula and further south, including San Jose.
Waymo’s permission from California comes as Tesla gears up to roll out a paid robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, next month. CEO Elon Musk has said the electric vehicle maker will expand the service to California later this year.
Waymo requested authorisation to expand its operations in March and received 23 responses in support and no protests from stakeholders, California Public Utilities Commission said in a statement.
Waymo, however, said it would not expand the services in the San Francisco Bay Area immediately.
“We want to bring Waymo One to more of the Bay Area, and any expansion of the service will happen methodically over time,” a company spokesperson said. The spokesperson did not provide any reason for that decision and said there were “no imminent plans or timeline to share.”
Waymo is the only U.S. firm to run uncrewed robotaxi services carrying paying passengers. The company has more than 1,500 vehicles on the road across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, Texas, and runs over 250,000 rides a week.
Self-driving vehicle companies have been under increased regulatory scrutiny following a major accident in 2023 in San Francisco involving a robotaxi from General Motors’ Cruise, which later shut operations.
Waymo, which has been growing its presence steadily, is recalling more than 1,200 self-driving vehicles to update software and address risks of collisions with chains, gates and other roadway barriers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said last week. U.S. auto safety investigators had opened a probe last year.
NHTSA has been investigating Tesla’s full self-driving collisions in reduced roadway visibility conditions since October and asked the company last week to answer questions on its robotaxi launch plans to assess how the vehicles would perform in poor weather.
