Waymo and Cruise get approval to offer paid robotaxi rides in San Francisco

Google’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise are now allowed by California’s regulators to charge fares for fully self-driving rides in San Francisco all the time. The California Public Utilities Commission, made up of people who decide the rules, voted in favor of letting these companies expand their self-driving services. They checked if the companies followed the rules and listened to people talking for and against the expansion.

#SelfDrivingCarsSF
#WaymoCruiseExpansion
#CPUCApproval

Waymo said it plans to slowly welcome more people to use its service. It will start making people pay for rides in the city soon. Waymo already has 100,000 signups from people who want to use its service. It thinks a lot of people will want to use it, so it wants to be careful and give a good service. Waymo promises that everyone will be able to use their self-driving cars eventually. On the other side, Cruise’s CEO Kyle Vogt said his company will keep working with the rule-makers to make transportation safer, cleaner, and easier for everyone.

Right now, Waymo has 200 self-driving cars in San Francisco. Cruise has 300 self-driving cars. Before they got the approval from CPUC, Cruise could only offer rides for money in a few parts of San Francisco between 10 PM and 6 AM without a person to take over if there’s a problem. With a person there, they could give rides any time. For Waymo, they could only make people pay for rides anytime if a person was there too.

Commission President Alice Reynolds, and commissioners Darcie Houck, and John Reynolds, of CPUC, agreed to let the companies expand. But commissioner Genevieve Shiroma, disagreed. She said CPUC didn’t have enough information to know how self-driving cars might affect people who respond first to accidents. This decision was the last big thing the companies needed to do before they could give rides all the time. They talked to people about how safe self-driving cars are and how they can help older people and those with disabilities be more on their own.

Get More Great Car Videos – Subscribe: https://goo.gl/BSIaFc