How California's approval of Waymo's robotaxi expansion changes the map
The CPUC cleared Waymo to charge for driverless rides in 18 counties, intensifying a fight with Uber, Lyft drivers and state lawmakers over robotaxi rules.
California regulators have given Waymo its broadest permission yet to operate paid, fully driverless rides in the state. On August 14, 2026, the California Public Utilities Commission approved an updated safety plan that lets the company charge for robotaxi trips across 18 counties, from the Bay Area and Los Angeles to new markets in Sacramento and San Diego.
The approval lands in the middle of two other fights: Uber and Lyft drivers who protested outside CPUC headquarters in January demanding tighter oversight of autonomous vehicles, and Uber itself moving from robotaxi partner to robotaxi competitor in California. A separate bill setting new safety rules for the industry is now sitting on Governor Gavin Newsom's desk.
What the CPUC actually approved
Waymo filed its request, known as Advice Letter 4, with the CPUC on January 28, 2026, then filed a supplemental letter in May addressing procedures for unaccompanied minors and for service disruptions, an issue raised by a December 2025 PG&E power outage in San Francisco that stalled Waymo vehicles. The commission approved the combined filing on August 14, with the update covering both Waymo's existing Jaguar I-PACE fleet and its newer Ojai vehicle platform.
The approved territory spans Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties in Northern California, plus Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties in the south. Within that footprint, Waymo can run driverless trips on freeways, city streets, rural roads, parking lots, driveways and rail crossings, day or night, in rain, fog and hail, though not in widespread snow or ice.
Waymo called the decision a milestone and said the rollout "will be gradual and guided by our safety framework." Waymo's fleet stands at roughly 3,000 vehicles that have together completed more than 20 million trips, and the company has said it is aiming for 1 million rides a week nationally by the end of 2026.
A recall shadows the rollout
The expansion comes a few months after Waymo recalled nearly 4,000 robotaxis in June 2026, after vehicles were found entering closed freeway construction zones. That recall sits alongside a string of smaller incidents that drew public attention in 2025 and early 2026: a Waymo vehicle made an illegal U-turn in September 2025 that police could not ticket because there was no human driver behind the wheel, and in October 2025 a Waymo struck and killed a neighborhood cat known locally as Kit Kat.
Those incidents, along with the December power-outage stall, became talking points for critics as the CPUC weighed the larger expansion, even though the August approval ultimately went through.
How it reshapes competition with Uber and Lyft
The clearest shift is that Uber is no longer content to be Waymo's distribution partner. The two companies ended their ride-hailing partnership in Phoenix in 2026 — Smart Cities Dive dated the split to May, while TechCrunch reported it happened in July — and Waymo's remaining tie-ups with Uber in Atlanta and Austin are set to wind down by 2028. In California, Uber is now building its own robotaxi business: CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on an August 5 earnings call that Uber will deploy robotaxis using Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro self-driving technology in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Uber plans to source up to 20,000 Lucid electric vehicles and has ordered 10,000 Rivian robotaxis, with an option for 40,000 more beginning in 2028, and has committed roughly $500 million to Nuro.
Separately, Nvidia has said it plans to support autonomous vehicles running entirely on its Hyperion software platform in Los Angeles and San Francisco starting in the first half of 2027. Motional already runs self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles on the Uber app in Las Vegas under a 10-year agreement that named Los Angeles among its first target cities, though as of March 2026 those Las Vegas vehicles still carried human safety operators rather than running fully driverless. Amazon-owned Zoox has said it plans to put robotaxis on Uber's app in Las Vegas this year and in Los Angeles in 2027.
The upshot is that California is becoming a market where the same companies that once split robotaxi fares are now racing each other for the same rides. One industry analyst, cited by Smart Cities Dive, said Waymo currently has "a nice strong lead" over the field despite Uber's far larger ride-hailing footprint nationally.
“California is becoming a market where the same companies that once split robotaxi fares are now racing each other for the same rides.”
Why Uber and Lyft drivers are protesting
Human drivers see the expansion as evidence they are competing on an uneven playing field. On January 9, 2026, about two dozen Uber and Lyft drivers and supporters gathered outside CPUC's San Francisco offices; the California Gig Workers Union has called for Waymo vehicles to be pulled from the road until safety concerns are resolved.
Joseph Augusto, who drives for both Uber and Lyft, told reporters at the protest that he is "not against technology," but that autonomous vehicle companies "don't seem to be held to the same standards as us drivers." Protesters pointed to the September U-turn incident, the Kit Kat cat death and the December outage as examples of accountability gaps.
The regulatory fight still ahead
The most concrete near-term test is Senate Bill 1246, authored by state Senator Dave Cortese, which passed the Assembly on August 30 and cleared the Senate the next day. It was enrolled on September 4 and presented to Governor Newsom on September 9, meaning it is currently awaiting his signature or veto.
SB 1246 would require autonomous vehicle companies to immediately dispatch technicians to move disabled vehicles, give first responders the ability to move or remotely control cars blocking traffic, and notify cities and emergency officials during fleet-wide failures. It sets fines of $5,000 for failing to clear a blocked vehicle and $10,000 if a blockage exceeds 30 minutes and impedes emergency responders, and it would require companies to report response-time data to the DMV each quarter. If signed, the bill's provisions would take effect July 1, 2028.
Cortese has said the bill's central goal is to "accelerate the response to emergency situations," pointing to incidents including stalled Waymos during Fourth of July crowds and the December blackout, when the company logged nearly 1,600 stops. The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association and 30 other industry groups and companies, including Waymo, have opposed the bill, arguing its notification requirements are overly broad and would force technician dispatches for minor incidents that pose no safety risk.
