Google’s Waymo driverless ride-hailing service is expanding operations to Los Angeles, California.
Waymo has not yet specified a timeline for when the rides will start – just that Los Angeles will be next in line.
It’s a major announcement, given the size and scope of LA driving, which is more complex than both Phoenix and San Francisco.
Waymo operates a fleet of self-driving electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles – these currently serve the public in Phoenix, Arizona, and are being tested by employees in San Francisco, California. These vehicles have no driver, whether in the vehicle or remotely – they run purely on sensors and can be used by the public in Phoenix with no NDAs or predefined pickups through the Waymo One app. The company is currently looking for “Trusted Testers” in San Francisco: nonemployees who can help test the next phase of their rollout.
Starting this week, Angelenos might catch a glimpse of Waymo’s cars on the streets of LA! Our cars will be in town exploring how Waymo’s tech might fit into LA’s dynamic transportation environment and complement the City’s innovative approach to transportation. pic.twitter.com/REHfxrxqdL
Phoenix was Waymo’s first area, which is marked by mostly wide, flat streets in a grid configuration and isn’t nearly as choked by traffic as California’s major cities. Moving to San Francisco upped complexity a lot – the city is quite difficult to drive in, but at least it’s small, which means everything can be mapped out ahead of time so the vehicles have an easier time navigating.
Waymo’s public Phoenix coverage area is about a hundred square miles. The company is also testing in downtown Phoenix, including rides to the Sky Harbor airport. In San Francisco, the coverage area is smaller, as the city itself is only 7-by-7 miles.
Interestingly, the press release quotes the population of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, which has 13 million residents and covers an area far larger than any of their previous service areas by population, area, and complexity.
The LA metro area is commonly considered to run all the way from Thousand Oaks to San Clemente and sometimes includes Riverside as well. But, Waymo also quoted Holly Mitchell, an LA supervisor for District 2, which mostly covers South Central, the West side and beach cities (here’s an LA district map) and is a couple hundred square miles. It notably excludes downtown – a more complex area, which Waymo was also later to address in both SF and Phoenix. So we’d bet that Waymo will mostly cover this area first.
Compared to SF and Phoenix streets, Los Angeles is the worst of both worlds – a huge, sprawling metropolis with lots of distance to cover and often-poor road quality, tons of traffic, and complex roads. It’s easier to drive in than San Francisco (in this writer’s opinion), but it offers more varied terrain and road conditions across a much wider area. Waymo mentions some of these difficulties in their press release:
We’ve also autonomously driven millions of miles on freeways, giving us a head start handling some of Los Angeles’s most challenging roads. Roads that include criss-crossing freeway ramps, narrow surface streets, high numbers of unprotected left turns, blinding sunsets down its east-west roads, and distracted drivers.
Currently, Waymo’s rides are still free to the public in Phoenix, unlike competitor GM Cruise which started charging for some rides in San Francisco earlier this year. Waymo also has permission to start charging for rides in San Francisco but hasn’t done so yet, as it’s not yet open to the public in that area. Waymo says that the potential commercial opportunity in the LA market is as big as a dozen smaller US cities combined, due to its population, size, and car-centric nature.
Lots of interesting data from Los Angeles. To map the city, we use the same vehicles from our autonomous fleet powered by the fifth-generation Waymo Driver. Here’s a behind the scenes view of what the Waymo Driver saw going down Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. https://t.co/GYuashZ3mlpic.twitter.com/rZXPgAxQgf
We’re sure the first rides in LA won’t be charged for as Waymo tests its program. In San Francisco, it has only allowed employee travel since it started operations in March, but that is convenient since the company is headquartered there. There may not be enough LA-based employees to allow for this restriction, so Google might start off with “Trusted Tester” and public rides sooner than they have in SF (or maybe that’s wishful thinking – I’d love to use this service).
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If Mayor Adams gets his way, New York City will institute a new speed limit on electric bicycles, reducing the cap to just 15 mph (24.1 km/h) from the previous e-bike speed limit of 25 mph (40 km/h). It’s a move that is ostensibly meant to protect New Yorkers, but which experts have said will actually result in risking more lives.
It’s a prime example of doing more harm than good, says Michael Replogle, the former policy director for NYC’s Department of Transportation and an internationally recognized expert in the field of sustainable transportation.
The issue is that the reduced speed limit means that slower e-bikes will constantly come into conflict with higher speed traffic, routinely being passed by multi-ton cars and SUVs.
Despite the 25 mph (40 km/h) city-wide speed limit for cars in NYC, the de facto speed limit is really 35 mph (56 km/h), which is the speed at which traffic cameras begin to record infractions and issue citations.
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Previously, electric bicycles were permitted to travel at speeds up to 25 mph, helping them more closely match the speed of vehicular traffic and thus reduce the conflict rate between vulnerable cyclists and dangerously large and heavy vehicles. “I can tell you it feels much safer as a cyclist if you’re going close to the speed of the traffic than if you’re going half the speed of traffic,” Replogle explained.
“I strongly oppose the proposed rule to limit e-bikes to a 15 mph speed limit. It is an ill-considered idea to improve safety which will be counterproductive,” Replogle continued, according to NYC Streetsblog. “It is also likely to put New Yorkers at risk of a criminal record or entrapment in President Trump’s immigration dragnet.”
A large portion of the e-bike riders in NYC are immigrants who work as food delivery riders or bike couriers who are depended upon by thousands of New Yorkers every day.
“It’s a war on bikes, it’s a war on immigrants, and it undermines traffic safety,” Replogle added. “I think it’s Adams basically trying to mount a populist assault on cycling.”
Despite e-bike accidents being cited as the supposed reason for the city’s reduced bike speed limit, cars account for virtually all of NYC’s traffic-related injuries and deaths.
Electrek’s Take
I know this might come as a shock, but the experts here are correct and the politicians are wrong.
Reducing e-bike speed limits won’t make things safer; it’s just more likely to get people killed due to increased car crashes with cyclists.
This whole issue came about because a few pearl-clutching New Yorkers with money and power saw an e-bike whizz past them closer than they were comfortable with, and wanted it to stop. This has nothing to do with protecting people’s lives. If that were the primary goal, then they’d limit cars to 15 mph, not e-bikes. Only one of the two is a highly effective killing machine, and I’ll give you a hint – it’s not the one that weighs as much as a small child.
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The sun has set on a frantic day of scrutineering at this year’s Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP), as teams scramble to qualify for a spot on the starting line tomorrow morning. Electrek FSGP 2025 is shaping up to be one of the event’s most attended ever, thanks to a strong showing of first-time and returning schools. But that also means new and unproven vehicles on the track.
Today, I walked through a couple of bays and talked with a few of the teams able to spare a minute; almost all of them were debuting completely new cars that were years in the making. Building a solar car is no easy feat. It’s not just the engineering and technical know-how that’s often a hurdle for them; it’s more often monetary. However, one of the things that makes this event so special is the camaraderie and collaboration that happen behind the scenes.
Northwestern University is back with a completely new car this season, its eighth since the team’s original inception in 1997 during the GM Sunrayce days. Its motor controller, which is responsible for managing the flow of power from the batteries to the motor, was given to them by the Stanford team. Stanford had extras and could spare one for Northwestern, which needed a replacement. It doesn’t stop there. Two members of the Northwestern team (Shannon and Fiona) told me four other teams helped them with a serious tire replacement around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, saving them from missing important parts of scrutineering.
This is also an exciting year for the West Virginia team, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary as a solar car team, making them one of the oldest teams on the track. With age comes wisdom though: WV is competing again this year with its single-occupant vehicle, Sunseeker. The team ran into issues after last year’s American Solar Challenge (ASC) cross-country event when the vehicle’s control arm, an important part of the suspension that connects the wheels to the chassis, broke. They tell me this year they’re back with a completely redesigned control arm made of both aluminum and steel. Thank you, Hayley, John, and Izzy, for taking the time to talk.
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We’re also seeing new builds this year from the University of Florida, the University of Puerto Rico, NC State, and UC Irvine. Believe it or not, the latter team has never competed in an American Solar Challenge/Formula Sun Grand Prix. This is their first year. UC Irvine doesn’t expect to be on the starting line tomorrow but hopes to be on the track soon after.
University of Puerto RicoUniversity of California Irvine
On the other hand, we have tried-and-proven cars like my personal favorite, Polytechnique Montréal’s Esteban, which undergoes minor improvements each year. I talked a little bit with this team today, and they told me the car’s motor was dropped, disassembled, and cleaned in preparation for the event. Polytechnique Montréal has passed scrutineering and will appear on the starting line tomorrow.
Polytechnique Montréal
Teams that haven’t wrapped up scrutineering in the last three days can still complete it, though doing so will eat into time on track.
You can learn more about the different classes and the specific rules here.
I’ll continue to post more updates as the event continues!
2025 Electrek FSGP schedule
The 2025 Electrek FSGP will again be held at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which, interestingly enough, General Motors occasionally uses for Corvette testing and development. A bit of a full-circle moment being so close to the company that started it all.
The event is open to the public and FREE to attend. Come see the solar car race up close!
Racing starts on July 3 from 10am to 6pm CT and continues through July 5 from 9am to 5pm CT.
Featured image via Cora Kennedy for Electrek FSGP/ASC.
Note: The Formula Sun Grand Prix is not in any way associated or affiliated with the Formula 1 companies, FORMULA 1 racing, or the FIA Formula One World Championship.
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Tesla’s Q2 results are in, and they are way, way down from Q2 of 2024. At the same time, Nissan seems to be in serious trouble and the first-ever all-electric Dodge muscle car is getting recalled because its dumb engine noises are the wrong kind of dumb engine noises. All this and more on today’s deeply troubled episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got an awesome article from Micah Toll about a hitherto unexplored genre of electric lawn equipment, a $440 million mining equipment deal, and a list of incompetent, corrupt, and stupid politicians who voted away their constituents’ futures to line their pockets.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
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Got news? Let us know! Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.
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