Waymo and Cruise got the green light to provide 24/7 paid taxi services across San Francisco after California regulators approved new rules for the fledgling self-driving car industry in the face of hefty public opposition.
The vote by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Thursday overturned state restrictions that had previously limited the areas and hours of operation for robotaxis—for example, Cruise’s autonomous cars could only take paying passengers between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., while Waymo was not allowed to take any fees for rides unless there was a safety driver present in the car.
Under the new rules, the duo will now be permitted to charge fares for rides taken at any time of day in a major win for their respective parent companies, General Motors and Alphabet, owner of Google.
Despite the city’s extensive experience being at the forefront of disruptive technology, some residents argue the completely driverless cars remain rife with problems, hold up traffic, and are even prone to causing accidents.
San Franciscans in attendance at the CPUC hearing reportedly spent six and a half hours engaging in public comment before officials voted in favor of the expanded services—with locals lashing out at the “creepy” vehicles and labeling them “deathtraps” ahead of the vote.
“I did not vote for hundreds of these vehicles on the road. No one did,” one resident said, according to local news outlet SFGate. “Invest in public transportation and labor, not automation. Get these cars off our streets.”
It isn’t just residents who have taken issue with Cruise and Waymo cars in San Francisco—the taxis have also created headaches for local authorities, reportedly wreaking havoc on transportation infrastructure and disrupting emergency services operations.
City officials said they have logged around 600 incidents involving self-driving cars, including unexpected stops and illegal maneuvers.
San Francisco Fire Department chief Jeanine Nicholson told a hearing with the CPUC this week that badly driven Cruise and Waymo vehicles frequently disrupted firefighting efforts.
“It is not our job to babysit your vehicles,” she said, according to local news organization The San Francisco Standard. “Our folks cannot be paying attention to an autonomous vehicle when we’ve got ladders to throw. Every second can make a difference. The unpredictability, the obstruction, the lack of working with us on the front end is really a problem.”
Representatives for Waymo and Cruise said during this week’s hearings that their average response time when an accident occurred was between 10 and 14 minutes.
According to the resolutions published by the CPUC on Thursday, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA), and the Mayor’s Office on Disability had also lodged their formal protest against the expansion of both Cruise and Waymo services.
The agencies had argued that giving the companies free rein in the city was not a gradual enough change, given an alleged lack of data transparency and insufficient driverless testing.
Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told the Washington Post on Thursday that it was “likely” the city would file for a rehearing—which could pave the way for legal action against the commission.
CPUC commissioner John Reynolds—who served as legal counsel for Cruise between 2019 and 2022—defended the new rules for Waymo’s and Cruise’s autonomous taxis in a statement on Thursday.
“While we do not yet have the data to judge autonomous vehicles against the standard human drivers are setting, I do believe in the potential of this technology to increase safety on the roadway,” he argued. “Collaboration between key stakeholders in the industry and the first responder community will be vital in resolving issues as they arise in this innovative, emerging technology space.”
Traffic cone protests
The win for the robotaxi operators this week comes after activists took to disabling Cruise and Waymo vehicles with traffic cones.
In the run-up to this week’s CPUC hearing, decentralized group Safe Street Rebel shared video instructions on how to pull off the prank for those wanting to protest against greater Waymo and Cruise presence in San Francisco.
“Cruise and Waymo promise they’ll reduce traffic and collisions, but we know that’s not true,” the group alleged last month. “They block buses and emergency vehicles, create more traffic, and are a surveillance nightmare.”
In a post to the X platform following the hearing, Safe Street Rebel hinted that the protest would continue.
Robot car companies win a ruling with a captured regulator. But as we know, more cars just means more problems. And of course, more cones 🍦🦄😈 https://t.co/JY4A2aWJa9
— Safe Street Rebel (@SafeStreetRebel) August 11, 2023
A spokesperson for the CPUC did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
In a statement emailed to Fortune on Friday, Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, said the new permit marked “the true beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco.”
“We’re incredibly grateful for this vote of confidence from the CPUC, and to the communities and riders who have supported our service. We can’t wait for more San Franciscans to experience the mobility, safety, sustainability, and accessibility benefits of full autonomy for themselves—all at the touch of a button,” she said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Cruise told Fortune that many of the public comments made at Thursday’s hearing were supportive of the autonomous vehicle industry.
“Offering a commercial, 24/7 driverless ride-hail service across San Francisco is a historic industry milestone, putting Cruise in a position to compete with traditional ride hail and challenge an unsafe, inaccessible transportation status quo,” Prashanthi Raman, the company’s vice president of global government affairs, said in an emailed statement.
In a blog post after the vote, Waymo argued that fully autonomous vehicles were now an “essential mode of transportation” for many San Franciscans.
The company said it had more than 100,000 people either signed up for its robotaxi service or on the wait list—and noted that it expected demand in San Francisco to remain “incredibly high.”
Bloomberg reported last month that Cruise was averaging 1,000 trips a day in the city, with tens of thousands of people on the company’s wait list.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include statements from Waymo and Cruise.
