Waymo granted the first permit from California's DMV for driverless testing of autonomous cars on public roads, will start with limited tests in Silicon Valley
Carolyn Said / San Francisco Chronicle :
Context & Ripple Effects
Waymo is cashing in the application it filed with California's DMV in April, asking to test autonomous cars without safety drivers near its Mountain View headquarters — and the state hands it the first such permit rather than making it wait behind a queue. That matters because until now every permitted car on California public roads carried a human at the wheel.
The permit also opens a sequence the related coverage traces forward: a passenger service pilot permit in 2019 (riders but no fares, safety drivers still aboard), then approval in March 2024 leading to fully driverless freeway testing in the Bay Area, and by 2025 a temporary San Francisco permit to map SFO roads ahead of eventual commercial operations. Each step has been gated by a new permit, which makes this first one the template.
First-order effects
- Waymo can immediately run limited driverless tests on Silicon Valley public roads without a safety driver behind the wheel, starting near Mountain View.
- California's DMV establishes itself as the gatekeeper for a new permit category, setting the terms every subsequent applicant must meet.
Second-order effects
- Rival operators already in the state's pipeline — Didi Chuxing had just become the 53rd company holding a California testing permit — now have a benchmark to chase, pressuring the DMV to process driverless applications at scale.
- The staged-permit structure pushes Waymo to keep expanding scope test by test, from surface streets to freeways to airport mapping, since each capability requires fresh regulatory sign-off.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, California's permitting ladder becomes the de facto national pathway from driverless testing to paid robotaxi service, with regulators — not companies — controlling the pace of commercialization.
- Permit-gated expansion favors operators who can sustain years of incremental approvals, structurally advantaging deep-pocketed incumbents over smaller AV startups.
The trend: Autonomous driving is advancing through regulator-issued permits one capability at a time, with each grant — driverless testing, passenger pilots, freeway runs — converting a restricted test into the baseline for the next.