California provides permits to Cruise, Waymo for autonomous service

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Monday provided permits to self-driving units of General Motors and Alphabet Inc to permit passenger service in autonomous vehicles with safety drivers present.

CPUC said the General Motors’ unit Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo are under Drivered Deployment permits authorized to collect fares from passengers and can offer shared rides.

Before the announcement, Cruise and Waymo had been permitted to offer passenger service only on a testing basis with no fare collection allowed.

Waymo on Monday said it would make use of what it has learned operating its autonomous commercial ride-hail service in Arizona and apply it to their “growing service in San Francisco“.

Waymo said it has tens of thousands of riders on a waitlist in California following its lauch of a tester program in August. The company said it will begin offering paid trips through the program in the coming weeks.

Prashanthi Raman, Cruise’s vice president for global government affairs, welcomed the announcement as another positive incremental step forward. Raman added that the company’s mission has always been to release a driverless commercial ride-hail service in San Francisco, and that’s what we’ll continue working with the regulators to deliver that.