Amidst a shaky reputation with the public, including an incident on Feb. 10 that left one of its vehicles set alight in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown, Alphabet-backed (GOOG) robotaxi company Waymo has been given the green light to expand its operations in the state of California by the local authorities.
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According to a document released on March 1, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) allows the company to expand its robotaxi operations on local roads and highways across the San Francisco Bay Area and in Los Angeles at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour in certain areas.
Despite the CPUC's decision being based off of the company showing how it will keep other motorists and its own robotaxi passengers safe, not everyone is on board with it.
As per The Verge, the regulatory body wrote in the document approving Waymo's expansion that it denied a request from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) on evidentiary hearings into the company's statewide impact.
Additionally, groups like the American Council of the Blind called for new safety and accessibility standards to be implemented before Waymo's expansion was approved by the CPUC. The CPUC denied their request, calling it and other regulatory issues "matters of broader AV policy."
Nonetheless, the decision still comes at a time when public distrust for autonomous vehicle technology platformed by companies like Waymo is still very ripe.
Prior to the Feb. 10 incident, another Waymo vehicle similar to the one destroyed in the act of vandalism struck a cyclist at an intersection on Feb. 6, after it failed to detect it. On Feb. 13, the company issued a voluntary recall and software update after two vehicles crashed into the same pickup truck in Phoenix in separate incidents in December 2023.
Additionally, in an attachment embedded in the CPUC's decision document titled "Staff Review and Disposition", the City of South San Francisco, San Mateo County, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), and the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance (SFTWA) submitted formal letters of protest opposing the approval, all of which were deemed unfounded by the CPUC.
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In a statement to the Washington Post, a Waymo spokesperson said that the company intends to expand its robotaxi service "carefully and incrementally," and that it has "no immediate plans" to expand the service onto highways.
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