Overview
- Waymo announced an expansion into Sacramento, with electric Jaguar I‑PACE vehicles beginning manual mapping runs this week and no start date yet for driverless service.
- California’s DMV has already cleared broader operating areas, and Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty endorsed the move as supporting the city’s Vision Zero safety goals.
- Waymo is redeploying vehicles to Boston for training runs driven by trained specialists, including cold‑weather learning, as it works with officials on a legal framework.
- The company says Massachusetts must legalize fully autonomous vehicles before offering driverless rides, and lawmakers are weighing proposals from strict operator requirements to explicit approval of autonomous networks.
- Waymo points to internal data showing far fewer serious‑injury and pedestrian‑injury crashes than human drivers, while unions and local critics cite past incidents involving emergency vehicles and blocked traffic.