In a milestone for self-driving cars, Google's sister company Waymo has been given authorization to expand its robotaxi service from San Francisco to Silicon Valley and parts of Los Angeles.
The announcement from Waymo, a pioneer in autonomous driving, comes after its competitor Cruise from car giant General Motors suspended its services following a major accident.
At the start of March, a Californian regulatory authority authorized Waymo's request for commercial drives in a large area south of San Francisco as far as Sunnyvale, about 60 kilometres away.
This area also includes San Francisco Airport and the Google headquarters in Mountain View. Waymo says there are currently no plans to immediately expand the area of use of the vehicles.
Until now, the company had been allowed to transport passengers in self-driving cars without people at the wheel in the San Francisco metropolitan area, where it had around 250 cars in operation. The company emerged from Google's self-driving car programme, which began around 15 years ago.
However the advent of autonomous cars has been met with much resistance in the region, and both authorities and local residents have complained about these cars obstructing traffic and not driving safely.
Emergency services have complained about robotaxis stopping in the middle of the road and blocking their way. Public transport companies in San Francisco also reported similar problems when driving buses.
A few weeks ago, a Waymo car completely burnt out after being set on fire by vandals during the Chinese New Year celebrations.
For the time being, competitor Cruise will have to do without a similar licence to drive in San Francisco after it was frozen in the wake of an accident. In October, a woman was hit by another car with a person at the wheel and thrown in front of the Cruise vehicle. She got stuck under the robotaxi and was dragged several metres by it.
General Motors replaced the management team at Cruise after the accident. The ambitious growth plans of the former Cruise management were scrapped and the Robotaxi service is now only to be relaunched in one city.
The plans for a Cruise vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals have been put on hold for the time being. Waymo uses converted electric cars from Jaguar in its Robotaxi fleet.
