Waymo Applies for Deployment License for the Bay Area

Shortly after Waymo’s application to the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) to begin commercial operations of a driverless robotaxi service in Los Angele, details are now emerging. The big surprise is that with this filing, Waymo has also applied to massively expand operations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to San Francisco, where Waymo already has a commercial operating license, a number of cities south of there are to be included. These include Daly City, Brisbane, South San Francsco, San Bruno, Milbrae, Burlingame, San Mateo, Foster City, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City, Emerald Hills, parts of Woodside, Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, Stanford, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Sunnyvale.

In Los Angeles, Waymo sought an operating area extending from Santa Monica in the northwest, Bela Air and Hollywood in the north, to all of Los Angeles and East Los Angeles in the east, Comptom and Paramount in the southeast and Manhattan Beach in the southwest.

It is important to understand what this operating license covers and where the restrictions lie. It includes freeways, highways, urban roads, country roads and other roads, as well as parking lots. The maximum speed limit is 65 miles per hour (104 km/h), day and night. The trips may be carried out without a driver in fog and rain, but not in snow or ice on the roads, not through country lanes or single-lane mountain roads. The following groups of people may be transported as passengers: Members of the public, Waymo or Alphabet employees and their guests, as well as external employees and representatives. It may also be used to transport goods for a fee as a commercial delivery service.

In Waymo’s application, the various safety aspects and measures of the Waymo Driver are also addressed in a special annex.

In any case, this application shows that Waymo, after years of being accused of hesitation, now appears to be confident enough to expand its driverless vehicles on a large scale and gradually bring them to other regions. This also means that Waymo will certainly have to massively increase the number of robotaxis. The SF Bay Area will not be able to get by with 200 to 300 vehicles like those currently on the road in San Francisco, so a tenfold increase will probably be necessary. Los Angeles will also demand high investments from Waymo, as will the planned start of operations in other US cities.

Successful robotaxi operations in these prominent cities could therefore boost an expected IPO. The need for thousands to tens of thousands of vehicles for robotaxi operations with the necessary operating offices will consume billions. We can therefore expect Waymo to come closer to an IPO, which may even be imminent this year or next. Investors should definitely keep an eye on Waymo as the leading company in autonomous driving.

This article was also published in German.

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