The Mountain View-based autonomous vehicle company Waymo is making big strides towards expanding its service across the state of California.
The company is now one step closer towards operating its driverless taxis across most of the Bay Area and a big stretch of Southern California.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles updated its website showing that the department has approved additional areas across the state of operation for Waymo’s driverless testing and deployment, including a large swath of Southern California and much of the Bay Area, plus Sacramento.
The areas included in these maps are what the state calls operational design domains (or ODDs). The ODDs approved for Waymo apply to both its Jaguar I-Pace and Zeekr RT vehicle models.
But don’t expect to see Waymos on the road across the Bay Area just yet. The company still needs to get additional approval from the state to start charging riders and collecting fairs for these new expanded areas of operation.
A Waymo spokesperson told NBC Bay Area in a statement on Saturday: “We appreciate the DMV’s approval of our expanded fully autonomous operations.”
The company noted that the next place in California where it plans to launch its autonomous vehicle service for customers is San Diego, where it expects to welcome its first riders in mid-2026.
NBC Bay Area has reached out to the California DMV for comment and is awaiting a response.