California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) on Tuesday (Oct. 30) issued Waymo the state’s first permit to test self-driving cars on public roads without a human in the driver’s seat. Alphabet’s autonomous-driving subsidiary has had permission to test autonomous vehicles with safety drivers since 2014, but it can now dispense with humans to test three dozen test vehicles in its fleet.
In a blog post, Waymo called the development a milestone for its self-driving fleet, which has driven 10 million autonomous miles since 2009.
California is the company’s second test region; since 2017, it runs a testing program in Phoenix, Arizona.
