SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -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 authorization 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.
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City and Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Editing by Jamie Freed)
