Waymo gets California DMV's approval to test robotaxis in more areas (www.engadget.com)

California’s DMV has approved Waymo’s request to conduct driverless testing and deploy its robotaxis across a much larger portion of the state — covering the entire Bay Area, Sacramento and most of Southern California up to the Mexico border, according to maps the agency released. Waymo confirmed it’s “authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State,” though it hasn’t given exact start dates for testing or rides in the newly added regions. The company has said San Diego is its next California target with public rides expected in mid‑2026; it’s also expanding elsewhere, with Las Vegas (including the Strip and plans for the airport) and Detroit slated next year, and Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando coming in 2026. For the AI/ML community this is notable both as a regulatory milestone and a practical scaling challenge. Operating driverless (no onboard safety driver) across diverse geographies increases exposure to varied weather, road types and edge-case scenarios that will drive new data collection, model retraining and simulation demands. Technically, Waymo’s stacks — perception, HD mapping, localization, planning and fleet orchestration — must generalize across denser urban cores, suburban corridors and tourist-heavy zones, accelerating real-world validation and iteration. The expansion also raises the bar for competitors, creates richer multi-city datasets, and will likely influence regulatory norms and safety evaluation practices for autonomous systems.