On August 14, 2026 the Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division of the California Public Utilities Commission approved Waymo LLC’s Advice Letter 0004 and supplemental Advice Letter 0004-A. The disposition, signed by Joshua Huneycutt, Manager of the Transportation Licensing and Analysis Branch, approves Waymo’s updated Passenger Safety Plan in connection with an expanded operational design domain covering additional portions of Northern and Southern California, and approves the company’s Ojai vehicle platform. The effective date is the same day, so fared driverless passenger service in the expanded territory was cleared immediately.
The paperwork trail runs back most of a year. The California DMV approved the amendment expanding Waymo’s geographic operational design domain and authorising the Ojai platform on November 21, 2025. Waymo filed Advice Letter 0004 with the CPUC on January 28, 2026 seeking approval of the revised Passenger Safety Plan that goes with it. CPED staff asked for more information on May 1, 2026, and Waymo filed supplemental Advice Letter 0004-A on May 15, 2026 describing its procedures for preventing unaccompanied minors from riding, including account onboarding age requirements, in-vehicle detection and intervention and terms of service enforcement, plus its incident response, operational mitigations and rider communications during major service disruptions.
The filing drew 29 responses in support, from disability advocates, community and economic development organisations, elected officials and transportation groups, and two protests, both from the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System side: MTS itself and its Taxicab Advisory Committee. MTS argued that Waymo vehicles could block streets or trolley tracks and disrupt bus, trolley and paratransit service, citing the December 2025 San Francisco power outage; that expansion would harm the taxi industry it regulates; and that cities and counties should have a say in whether autonomous passenger service comes to their communities. Following a shortened 10-day protest period on the supplement, CPED received eight responses and no further protests.
The mechanics here are as instructive as the outcome. Two separate regulators gate a robotaxi footprint in California: the DMV decides where the vehicles may drive, and the CPUC decides whether the operator may charge passengers to ride in them. The nine months between DMV amendment and CPUC disposition is the real lead time on a market entry, and the specific questions staff pushed back on, unaccompanied minors and what happens to riders when the service degrades, are now effectively the standard checklist any operator should expect to answer before it can sell rides in a new California county.