California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations (www.dmv.ca.gov)

California’s DMV has approved a large map expansion allowing Waymo’s autonomous platforms to conduct driverless testing and deployment across all of the company’s approved operational design domains (ODDs) in the state. The approval explicitly covers Jaguar I‑Pace (2021, 2024) and Zeekr RT (2022, 2025) vehicles, permits operations at all hours (day and night), in all weather conditions including rain and fog, and across all speeds. The approved geofenced maps span dozens of cities and counties—from San Francisco and the broader Bay Area through Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Sacramento and the Inland Empire—covering a wide mix of dense urban, suburban and some rural environments. For the AI/ML community this is significant: it marks a regulatory step toward large‑scale, real‑world validation of perception, planning and control systems across highly varied environments and adverse conditions. Broader operational maps and round‑the‑clock, all‑weather permissions will generate richer, more diverse sensor datasets (camera/LiDAR/radar) and edge‑case examples that can reduce domain gaps between simulation and production. At the same time, scaling of driverless deployments raises expectations for robust online monitoring, incident reporting, model update pipelines, and safety validation frameworks as fleets encounter complex interactions, rare events and higher variability in lighting, weather and traffic patterns.