Waymo Plans Massive Robotaxi Service Area, But Not Massive Enough
Waymo has filed a request to the California Public Utilities Commission to expand robotaxi service in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area regions.
In the SFBA, it grows from just San Francisco to the whole peninsula, all the way to Sunnyvale but not including Marin, the East Bay and Santa Clara/Cupertino/San Jose. The LA area includes everything north and west of Compton, but not the San Fernando valley.
This expansion is huge, and a huge step in demonstrating Waymo’s ability to scale quickly to larger areas, but curiously not quite enough to perform the next really important test Waymo must do, which is learn how it can act as a car replacement. Right now, it’s operating like a taxi/Uber service, and it is not their ambition to just be another Uber (though they work with Uber to do exactly that in Phoenix.)
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