Waymo gets regulatory approval to expand across Bay Area and Southern California

Waymo continues to expand its reach, with the robotaxi company posting Friday that it’s now “officially authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State.”

Waymo already operates in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles (and outside California as well, in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix). But maps published by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles showed that the company can now test and deploy its autonomous vehicles across a much larger area in both the Bay Area and Southern California.

In the Bay Area, Waymo’s approved areas of operation now include most of the East Bay and North Bay (including Napa/Wine Country), as well as Sacramento. In Southern California, the company’s approved territory now stretches from Santa Clarita (north of Los Angeles) to San Diego.

The company will need additional regulatory approval before it can carry paying passengers in some of these regions, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Although Waymo’s post doesn’t offer many details about when it plans to actually start offering rides in all these new areas, the company wrote, “Next stop: welcoming riders in San Diego in mid-2026!”

The company had previously announced its intention to launch in San Diego next year, along with Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

There’s been plenty of Waymo expansion news in the past couple weeks, as the company announced that it will be entering Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa; is removing safety drivers ahead of its commercial launch in Miami; and will start offering rides that use freeways in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix.

We discussed the growth of Waymo and other robotaxi companies on the latest episode of the Equity podcast. My co-host Sean O’Kane noted that as Waymo begins to provide more unfettered access across the Bay Area, people could be spending a lot more time in their robotaxis — so we might see them using the service in new, weird, or even dangerous ways.