After a contentious public hearing, the California Public Utilities Commission allows Waymo and Cruise to operate driverless cabs 24/7 throughout San Francisco
prompting a vow from angry residents to continue staging traffic cone protests Nadia Bidarian / CNN : Regulators give green light to driverless taxis in San Francisco Shannon Connellan / Mashable : Robotaxis can now trundle the streets of San Francisco 24/7 Paul Ausick / 24/7 Wall St. : Morning Blast: Driverless in San Francisco, Consolidating Luxury, and No Boxes, No Worries Rob Quinn / Newser : Robotaxis Allowed to Expand Services in San Francisco Ryan Daws / Internet of Things News : San Francisco robotaxis get the green light to operate 24/7 Mike Murphy / MarketWatch : Regulators open floodgates for driverless taxis in San Francisco, whether they're wanted or not Mario Herger / The Last Driver License Holder : What does the Californian Robotaxi Approval Mean? Vish Gain / Silicon Republic : Driverless taxis can now operate all day in San Francisco The San Francisco Standard : Robotaxis: California Regulators OK 24/7 Self-Driving Car Expansion in San Francisco DigiTimes : Google's Waymo, Cruise get nod to expand San Francisco robotaxis Mariella Moon / Engadget : Waymo and Cruise get approval to offer 24/7 paid robotaxi rides in San Francisco Bloomberg : Google's Waymo, Cruise Get Nod to Expand in San Francisco Washington Post : California just opened the floodgates for self-driving cars Aarian Marshall / Wired : Robotaxis Can Now Work the Streets of San Francisco 24/7 Associated Press : Two rival robotaxi services win approval to operate throughout San Francisco despite safety concerns Brad Templeton / Forbes : Waymo And Cruise Get Permits For Full-Day Robotaxi For Money In SF, LA, Silicon Valley Yiwen Lu / New York Times : Driverless Taxis Can Expand San Francisco Services, Regulators Say Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch : Cruise and Waymo win robotaxi expansions in San Francisco Bluesky: Emil Protalinski / @epro.social : San Francisco = Science Fiction, for better and for worse [embedded post] X: Kyle Vogt / @kvogt : Thrilled to announce that the California Public Utilities Commission just approved @Cruise for fared operation 24/7 across all of San Francisco! It's a huge milestone for the AV industry, but even more importantly a signal to the country that CA prioritizes progress over our... Kyle Vogt / @kvogt : Yesterday we crossed 4 million driverless miles! We're now driving at a pace exceeding 1 million driverless miles per month. @martynday : California allows driverless taxi service to operate in San Francisco. This is the start of AI taking away mass human jobs. In the UK there are over 260,000 licensed taxi drivers. It will fundamentally change how people live in cities and car ownership https://www.theguardian.com/ ... @californiapuc : We have granted additional operating authority for @Cruise and @Waymo to conduct commercial passenger service using driverless vehicles in San Francisco. The approval includes the ability for both companies to charge fares for rides at any time of day. https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/... [image] David Zipper / @davidzipper : In @TheAtlantic, I explained why I welcome the robotaxi uproar in San Francisco. Even if self-driving cars work flawlessly (unlike now), they could be catastrophic for cities and the planet. We should think long and hard before letting them scale. 🧵 https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... @wholemarsblog : Thank you to California Publif Utilities Commission President Alice Reynolds and commissioners Darcie Houck and John Reynolds for voting for expanding autonomous driving in San Francisco Accelerating the adoption of this technology will save lives Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher / @lorenasgonzalez : To be clear: autonomous vehicles jeopardize public safety & eliminate good jobs. The California Labor Movement stands in opposition to expanding San Francisco's dangerous pilot program. We deserve better from the CPUC. [image] Robert M. Sandoval / @ibt350_sandoval : Another video of a Cruise autonomous vehicle putting our members in an unsafe situation. Just sent by one of my members in San Francisco. This is ridiculous. [video] Emmett Shear / @eshear : Can you imagine the board of supervisors wasting time on autonomous vehicles, with everything else going on in San Francisco? @kane : Imagine being president of the board of supervisors like @AaronPeskin presiding over a period of record robberies in San Francisco and deciding that autonomous vehicles—a rare bright spot in the city's progress—was going to be the hill to die on @waymo : We've been waiting for this moment and now we can share it with you: Today, we received our paid driverless permit from the CPUC! In the coming weeks, we'll begin charging fares for rider-only trips and welcoming new riders into Waymo One in San Francisco. https://waymo.com/... [video] Mike Murphy / @mcwm : the public beta expands https://www.nytimes.com/... Aaron Levie / @levie : Seminal moment in transportation [image] Ed Ludlow / @edludlow : NEWS: The California CPUC has voted to approve expanded driverless fare-charging rides in San Francisco for @Waymo @Cruise Story coming: Statement: [image] Andrej Karpathy / @karpathy : Found this picture of my first demo drive of a self driving car ever, in what would later become Waymo. Dated Aug 2013, ~exactly one decade ago :) What I experienced then was quite good already, zero intervention drive around the area. How long it takes to make demos *real*... [image] Julianne McGoldrick / @jul_mcgoldrick : This wouldn't have been possible without the support of our INCREDIBLE riders; the amazing, patient folks on our waitlist; and all the residents of SF who made their voices heard. SF is an extraordinary city, one that I ❤️ so much, and AVs will make it even better. Let's go!!!! Kyle Vogt / @kvogt : A tremendous milestone for the AV industry, but even more importantly a signal to the country that CA prioritizes progress over the status quo. We share the CPUC's commitment to delivering safer, cleaner and more accessible transportation options. With road fatalities... @piratewires : CA Votes YES on Full Self-Driving Taxi Rollout in San Francisco in win for @Cruise and @Waymo The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted 3-1 today to allow autonomous vehicle companies Waymo and Cruise's self-driving taxi operations in San Francisco to operate 24/7... [image] LinkedIn: Ludovic Basset : Step by step, but still little by little. We need the EU to fully unlock the potential of all forms and levels of vehicle autonomous driving. … Robert Chen : 🎉 Today is a huge milestone for Waymo in San Francisco! 🎉 — The CPUC has approved our driverless deployment permit … Forums: r/sanfrancisco : Robotaxis get the green light to expand to 24/7 service in San Francisco
Context & Ripple Effects
The authorization resolves a dispute in which city officials had argued they lacked control over a service California regulators were considering for round-the-clock operation; the earlier fight over local control of 24/7 robotaxis made the CPUC decision a test of who governs autonomous fleets on city streets.
The approval also arrives amid immediate evidence that operational failures can shape acceptance: subsequent coverage documented robotaxis obstructing traffic and emergency vehicles, putting public trust alongside technical performance at the center of deployment.
First-order effects
- Waymo and Cruise can immediately offer paid, fully driverless rides throughout San Francisco at any hour, replacing a constrained operating model with citywide commercial availability.
- Residents, emergency responders, and city traffic operations now have to contend with a larger and less time-limited autonomous-vehicle presence; organized traffic-cone protests signal direct local resistance.
Second-order effects
- The two operators gain a real-world service and operations test bed, while competing robotaxi programs face pressure to show comparable reliability and regulatory readiness.
- Reports of vehicles blocking streets or emergency access give critics concrete incidents to bring back to regulators, raising the operational cost of expansion even after permission is granted.
Third-order effects
- Robotaxi rollout is likely to be governed less as a one-time technical approval than as a continuing social-license process, where public acceptance and incident response can determine whether access endures.
- The split between statewide authorization and municipal concerns points to a durable governance question: whether cities gain more operational leverage as autonomous fleets scale remains uncertain.
The trend: This is one step in the shift from limited autonomous-vehicle pilots to commercially available urban fleets whose expansion depends on both regulator approval and public trust.