{"id":433058,"date":"2026-08-14T19:50:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/433058\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T19:50:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:50:56","slug":"waymo-can-operate-driverless-vehicles-in-sacramento-cpuc-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/433058\/","title":{"rendered":"Waymo can operate driverless vehicles in Sacramento, CPUC says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waymo gets green light from state regulators to operate in Sacramento, company says<\/p>\n

\"JonathanSACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n

After weeks of testing, Waymo announced Friday that California regulators have approved its driverless cars in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

This comes after the robotaxi service announced in July that it would begin testing the driverless function while technicians are inside the vehicle.<\/p>\n

Waymo said the California Public Utilities Commission approved its application for fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing services. The approval also comes with permission to serve San Diego in the future and to expand services in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

“This is an important milestone that will allow Waymo to bring the safety and mobility benefits millions of Californians already enjoy to more communities across the state,” the company said in a news release.<\/p>\n

Waymo first announced its expansion into the state capital in February<\/a> and had been manually testing and programming its fleet to learn the city’s roads.<\/p>\n

The company said its immediate focus is to prepare to launch rider-only service in San Diego later this summer and to continue validating its technology in Sacramento. <\/p>\n

When KCRA 3 asked about when people can expect the services to be available, Waymo said it does not have an immediate timeline to share at this time.<\/p>\n

Once it does become available, riders will be able to hail a vehicle as they would other rideshares, such as Lyft or Uber. The difference would be that there would be no one in the driver’s seat.<\/p>\n

City leaders in Sacramento believe driverless vehicles could make streets safer and reduce pedestrian deaths. However, others question how quickly an autonomous vehicle could adapt to a situation.<\/p>\n

See news happening? Send us your photos or videos if it\u2019s safe to do so at kcra.com\/upload<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Waymo gets green light from state regulators to operate in Sacramento, company says SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 After weeks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2820,6919,184,7,14047,1409,7934,172027,1804,23615,38944,38941,473,47,3987,172031,172032,6366,172028,36387,121,123,122,74,19297,21336,4747,172030,27656,172029,17249,3986,178,5987],"class_list":["post-433058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-app","tag-autonomous-vehicles","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-california-public-utilities-commission","tag-city","tag-city-leaders","tag-commercial-ride-hailing","tag-company","tag-download","tag-driverless-vehicle","tag-driverless-vehicles","tag-kcra","tag-los-angeles","tag-lyft","tag-mobility-benefits","tag-other-rideshare","tag-pedestrian-deaths","tag-rider-only-service","tag-robotaxi-service","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-san-diego","tag-seat","tag-self-driving-cars","tag-service","tag-state-capital","tag-state-regulator","tag-technology-testing","tag-testing","tag-uber","tag-vehicle","tag-waymo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}