Waymo's Driverless Pickups Eye Cupertino Streets

Waymo added Cupertino to a new Bay Area expansion announced on May 14, extending the company’s driverless ride-hailing footprint into more South Bay neighborhoods. The move does not mean riders in Cupertino can immediately book a pickup there. Waymo said the expansion covers about 60 square miles and lifts its Bay Area service area to more than 300 square miles. California regulators, not Cupertino, control whether and where the company can operate driverless passenger service. ### Did Waymo actually start picking up passengers in Cupertino? May 14 was the date Waymo said it was expanding service toward Cupertino, Campbell and parts of San Jose, but local reports said app users could not yet set pickups or drop-offs in Cupertino as of that week. That makes the change a map expansion and rollout step, not a confirmed start date for commercial pickups on every newly added street. (kron4.com) Waymo said on May 13 that its footprint in the San Francisco Bay Area would grow “over the next few weeks” as part of a broader national expansion. The company did not publish a Cupertino-specific launch day for rider availability. ### Who decides whether driverless rides can operate on Cupertino streets? The California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission are the key regulators for Waymo’s driverless operations in California. (kron4.com) Local governments can meet with the company and prepare for impacts on streets and curbs, but city officials do not have final approval power over the service. (waymo.com) The DMV’s Waymo timeline shows the company has received a series of testing and deployment expansions in California, including a March 2025 geographic expansion within the Bay Area Peninsula. The CPUC separately authorized Waymo in 2023 to offer fare-charging driverless passenger service without a safety driver under specified conditions, and a March 26, 2025 advice letter sought approval for an updated passenger safety plan tied to expanded Bay Area Peninsula territory. (sanjosespotlight.com) ### Why is Cupertino on Waymo’s map at all? Cupertino is not new to Waymo’s South Bay operations. A CPUC quarterly background report from 2019 said Waymo’s pilot territory for employee guests already included Cupertino, along with Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. What is changing now is the prospect of broader public-facing driverless service tied to Waymo One’s commercial network. (dmv.ca.gov) Waymo has also been scaling quickly beyond the South Bay. The company said in March it was serving more than half a million trips a week across 10 U.S. cities, and in February co-Chief Executive Tekedra Mawakana said it was on track to exceed 1 million rides a week by the end of 2026. ### What have Cupertino officials said so far? (cpuc.ca.gov) Cupertino Mayor Kitty Moore told local outlets that Waymo representatives had recently met with city officials about the expansion. Moore said she wanted to see how the service performs locally and pointed to safety as the central question. San Jose Spotlight reported that West Valley officials were weighing possible benefits such as safer driving behavior and transportation access against concerns about accountability, public transit competition and community reaction. (waymo.com) Those concerns were attributed to named local officials, not to any formal city action blocking service. (kron4.com) ### What should riders and residents watch next? The clearest next signal is in the Waymo app. Local reporting said Cupertino was approved or slated for expansion before pickups were fully available, so the app’s live service boundary is the practical test for when commercial rides can actually start. Waymo’s next formal milestones are likely to come through updated service maps, public company posts or additional California regulatory filings. (sanjosespotlight.com) Cupertino officials, including Mayor Kitty Moore, have already said they were briefed by Waymo representatives, and further city discussions are likely to track curb use, traffic behavior and resident complaints once pickups begin. (kron4.com) (cupertinotoday.com)