Waymo starts taking fares for SF robotaxis after state approval
Waymo received final approval to operate its driverless taxis in California last week and will start charging for its driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco starting Monday, August 21.
Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission issued its final approval allowing Google’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise driverless taxi services to operate 24/7 in the state.
Both companies currently operate public rideshare services only in San Francisco, though Waymo is testing driverless rides with employees in LA, and Cruise will start doing so soon.
Last year, Cruise started charging for rides in San Francisco, but until now, Waymo has not. Waymo does charge for rides in Phoenix (and has since 2020), where it first began its public operations, but its SF rides have been free up until this announcement.
Today, Waymo emailed its current Waymo One users, letting them know about next week’s fare implementation. (Thanks to our reader Scott for tipping us off on this.) In Waymo’s announcement, it specified a few points about its fare system:
- We’re transparent with our pricing — you’ll always know your trip cost before you book
- We base the price of your trip on the most direct route. Even if the car reroutes, or adapts a route in an unexpected way, the cost will not change
- During busier times, like nights and weekends, prices may be higher to help manage demand for rides
- Our wheelchair-accessible vehicle (WAV) service will remain free for now
Waymo has not yet listed its fare structure. A little more information is available on Waymo’s Help Center, but for actual fares, you’ll have to check the app. Until now, the app has shown an estimated price for each ride, but the price was struck through and replaced with “$0.” So we imagine pricing will stay similar to what the app has shown until now.
For comparison, Cruise charges a base fare of $5, with an additional 90 cents per mile and 40 cents per minute. But one big difference between the systems is that Cruise does not use surge pricing, whereas Waymo says that it will. As a result, Waymo’s “standard fares” will likely change, based on what time you’re ordering the service.
In comparison to other ride-hailing apps, we checked a sample ride on Uber, Lyft, and Waymo, and all three offered similar prices in the $11-14 range – though with Waymo, you don’t have to tip a driver, so there’s that. For reference, the sample fare was along a bus route with a fare of $2.50 and a free return trip within 2 hours.
Waymo says its busier times are generally weekday nights and all day on weekends, with exceptionally busy times on Friday and Saturday nights:
The system may be about to get busier, too, as Waymo rolls out to more users. While Waymo is currently open to the public, there is still a waitlist to get in as an approved user, which you can sign up for through the Waymo One app.
The app currently has 100,000 users on its waitlist and serves 10,000 rides a week between San Francisco and Phoenix. Those waitlist users will be invited “incrementally” as the service is expanded.
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The US solar industry just delivered another huge quarter, installing 11.7 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in Q3 2025. That makes it the third-largest quarter on record and pushes total solar additions this year past 30 GW – despite the Trump administration’s efforts to kneecap clean energy.
According to the new “US Solar Market Insight Q4 2025” report from Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie, 85% of all new power added to the grid during the first nine months of the Trump administration came from solar and storage. And here’s the twist: Most of that growth – 73% – happened in red states.
Eight of the top 10 states for new installations fall into that category, including Texas, Indiana, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Utah, Kentucky, and Arkansas. Utah jumped into the top 10 this quarter thanks to two big utility-scale projects totaling more than 1 GW.
But the report also flags major uncertainty ahead. Federal actions, including a July memo from the Department of the Interior (DOI), have slowed or stalled the approvals pipeline for utility-scale solar and storage. Without clarity on permitting timelines, Wood Mackenzie’s long-term utility-scale forecast through 2030 remains basically unchanged from last quarter.
“This record-setting quarter for solar deployment shows that the market is continuing to turn to solar to meet rising demand,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO. She added that strong growth in red states underscores how decisively the market is shifting toward clean energy. “But unless this administration reverses course, the future of clean, affordable, and reliable solar and storage will be frozen by uncertainty, and Americans will continue to see their energy bills go up.”
Two new solar module factories opened this year in Louisiana and South Carolina, adding a combined 4.7 GW of capacity. That brings the total new US module manufacturing capacity added in 2025 to 17.7 GW. With a new wafer facility coming online in Michigan in Q3, the US can now produce every major component of the solar module supply chain.
“We expect 250 GW of solar to be installed from 2025 to 2030,” said Michelle Davis, head of solar research at Wood Mackenzie and lead author of the report. “But the US solar industry has more potential. With rising power demand across the country, solar could do even more if current constraints were eased.”
SEIA also noted that, following an analysis of EIA data, it found that more than 73 GW of solar projects across the US are stuck in permitting limbo and at risk of politically motivated delays or cancellations.
Read more: EIA: Solar + storage soar as fossil fuels stall through September 2025
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The spiritual successor to the beloved Chevy Geo Tracker, production of the new-for-2026 electric Spark EUV has officially begun in Brazil with more than 200 miles of range.
That’s right, kids. To know the Chevy Tracker is to love the Chevy Tracker. The tiny, top-heavy Suzuki-based SUV combined bold colors, fun styling, (relatively) good fuel economy, and real off-road chops (especially in ZR2 trim) with an affordable price tag to make the Tracker an early favorite among the serious rock-crawling crowds.
Like, really
While it’s still too early to tell whether or not the all-new Chevy Spark EUV will come even close to that little proto-SUV, it seems we won’t have to wait much longer to find out – GM Authority reports that production of the 2026 Chevy Spark EUV has officially begun at Comexport’s Planta Automotiva do Ceará (PACE) plant, in the state of Ceará, Brazil.
GM Brazil invested the equivalent of $73 million to get the PACE factory ready to assemble GM’s modern, zero-emissions Chevy crossover for the South American and Middle Eastern markets – an investment big enough to earn a visit from Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was on-hand for the December 3rd kickoff event.
“It’s not a car factory,” said Comexport Vice President and PACE shareholder, Rodrigo Teixeir. “(The) goal is to develop technology there, not simply assemble a vehicle.”
Production of the new Spark EUV began last week, with production of the equally new Chevy Captiva EV set to begin as early as Q1 of 2026.
2026 Chevy Spark EUV
The Made in Brazil Chevrolet Spark EUV is heavily based on the Chinese Baojun, and is powered by that vehicle’s single 75 kW (101 hp), 180 Nm (130 lb-ft) motor driving the front wheels. Power comes from the Baojun’s 42 kWh LFP battery that, with regenerative braking, is good for up to 360 km (220 miles) on the NEDC driving cycle.
Weirdly, the new Spark is also equipped with a 10.1″ infotainment screen and 8.8″ digital instrument cluster (above) that supports both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto standard – technology that GM claims lead to “unsafe” driver behaviors in North America.
Let us know what you think of the little electric SUV, and whether or not you think it would be a hit in the US (it would) in the comments.
SOURCE: GM Authority; images by GM, Harry Situations.
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