Waymo Wins California Approval to Expand Driverless Ride-Hailing Across 18 Counties

Waymo has been given the green light to run fully driverless, fare-charging ride-hailing services across a vast new swathe of California. The California Public Utilities Commission approved the expansion on 14 August 2026, covering 18 counties from the San Francisco Bay Area down to San Diego.

The decision — formalising Waymo’s Advice Letters 0004 and 0004-A — also authorises the company’s updated Ojai vehicle platform for paid passenger operations. It’s the most sweeping single expansion of Waymo’s permitted territory to date.

What the Approval Covers

The 18 counties span both northern and southern California: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo in the north, and Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura in the south.

That’s a considerable stretch of territory. In the Bay Area alone, coverage now runs from Brentwood in the East Bay across to Sea Ranch in Sonoma County. Cities newly brought into the fold include Oakland, Berkeley, Santa Rosa, Napa, Walnut Creek and Half Moon Bay in the north, and Long Beach, Santa Clarita, Thousand Oaks, Anaheim, Irvine and Chula Vista in the south.

Sacramento and San Diego are the headline additions — two major cities where Waymo had no prior paid service authorisation.

A Phased Rollout, Not an Overnight Launch

Don’t expect Waymo cars on every street in all 18 counties from tomorrow. The company has been clear that its expansion will be “gradual and guided by our safety framework”, meaning riders in Sacramento and San Diego will need to wait while Waymo validates its technology in those environments before commercial operations begin.

That phased approach reflects the regulatory pathway Waymo has followed since its early California approvals. The CPUC first authorised paid, fully driverless passenger services in parts of Los Angeles and near San Francisco in March 2024. A further approval covering a broader Bay Area area, including San Jose, followed in May 2025. The August 2026 decision builds on those earlier steps, expanding the geographical scope and blessing the new Ojai platform.

Both the CPUC and California’s Department of Motor Vehicles must sign off before Waymo can operate in any given area — the DMV handles deployment permits and operational design domain approvals, while the CPUC covers the right to carry passengers and charge fares.

Ambitions and Opposition

Waymo has set itself the target of reaching around one million weekly rides as its California footprint grows. That figure comes from the company’s own forward-looking statements and hasn’t been independently verified, so treat it as a corporate goal rather than a current reality.

The scale of ambition is real, though. Analysts and news outlets covering the CPUC decision noted that the August 2026 approval more than triples Waymo’s previously permitted service coverage in the regions around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

But the expansion hasn’t gone without scrutiny. Across California, some local authorities, residents and advocacy groups have raised concerns about autonomous vehicles — road safety, how robotaxis interact with emergency services, data privacy, and what large driverless fleets might mean for taxi drivers and other professional drivers whose livelihoods depend on carrying passengers. Disability and transport equity campaigners have also pressed Waymo and regulators to ensure services are genuinely accessible.

Dan Trigub, who leads Waymo’s business operations, said: “We’re committed to making this expansion safe and beneficial for every community we enter — that means taking the time to do it right.”

Wider US debate about robotaxi safety has intensified after incidents involving other autonomous vehicle operators, and regulators have in some cases imposed pauses or tighter conditions on rival services. Waymo points to its safety record and the structured oversight built into its CPUC approvals as evidence that its approach is sound.

How Waymo Got Here

Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet — Google’s parent company — and has been running driverless ride-hailing in San Francisco and parts of Los Angeles for several years. Its vehicles operate without a human safety driver behind the wheel, relying entirely on sensors, cameras, radar and onboard computing to work through city streets.

The company’s California expansion has moved through a series of regulatory milestones. Each advance has required updated Passenger Safety Plans, new operational design domain filings with the DMV, and CPUC advice letter approvals. The August 2026 decision is the latest — and largest — step in that process.

Whether Sacramento and San Diego will see Waymo cars on their streets before the end of the year nobody knows yet. The company has committed to a cautious rollout, and the CPUC will continue to monitor operations under the conditions attached to the approval.

What This Means for Kent Residents

Waymo’s California expansion won’t put a driverless car on the streets of Maidstone or Folkestone any time soon — there’s no verified plan for Waymo to operate in the UK. But the regulatory model being built in California is being watched closely by transport bodies here. The UK’s Automated Vehicles Act 2024 already sets out a framework for authorising self-driving vehicles and assigning legal responsibility for safety, and the Department for Transport is likely to study how the CPUC’s safety plan and advice letter system performs at scale. For Kent residents, the broader picture is one of a technology moving steadily from trial to routine — and the policy decisions being made in California today may well shape what autonomous transport looks like on British roads in the years ahead.