Open to the publicWaymoJune 2024 · checked August 17, 2026
California’s regulator lists Waymo with all four permit classes including Driverless Deployment, which is the one that authorises charging fares for driverless rides (checked 2026-08-17).
Public, safety operator aboardTesla Robotaxi2025 · checked August 17, 2026
Bay Area operation runs with a safety operator aboard. Checked 2026-08-17: Tesla does not appear at all in California’s autonomous-vehicle passenger-service permit table, while Waymo and Zoox do — so what a rider gets here is a supervised car, not an authorised driverless service.
Open to the publicWaymo2025 · checked August 16, 2026
Part of Waymo’s public San Francisco Bay Area service.
Public, safety operator aboardTesla Robotaxi2025 · checked August 17, 2026
Tesla reports Bay Area ride-hailing with an active safety driver. Checked 2026-08-17: Tesla holds no California autonomous-vehicle passenger-service permit of any class, so the safety driver is not incidental — it is what the service is.
Open to the publicTesla Robotaxi2026 · checked August 16, 2026
Open to the publicWaymo— · checked September 14, 2026
“Launched” is doing a lot of work in most coverage of this industry. A market can be announced, testing, carrying only the operator’s own staff, or genuinely open to anyone — and only the last two mean you can book a ride. Every row states which.
The word “launched” is hiding four different things
In July 2026 a wave of coverage reported that a major operator had gone driverless in four new cities. Its own announcement said those rider-only trips were “initially for employees”. Both statements describe the same event; only one tells you whether you can get a ride.
That is why this tool tracks 7 distinct stages rather than a yes and a no. Of 30 operator-market records across 18 markets, 15 markets have at least one service an ordinary person can book right now.
What each stage means
Open to the public
Anyone can download the app and ride, with nobody in the driver seat.
Public, safety operator aboard
Anyone can ride, but a safety operator is aboard. You can still get a trip.
Waitlist
Sign-ups are open and riders are admitted in batches. You cannot ride on demand.
Employees only
Driverless and carrying riders — but only the operator’s own staff.
Testing only
Vehicles are on public roads, not carrying paying members of the public.
Announced
A public commitment to launch, with no passenger service yet.
Paused
Previously ran here, currently suspended.
Common questions
Why so many stages instead of “available / not available”?
Because the difference between them is the difference between getting home and standing at a kerb. A service can be fully driverless, carrying riders, and completely unavailable to you because those riders all work for the operator. Press coverage routinely compresses all of this into “launched”, and people plan trips around that word.
What is the difference between public and public with a safety operator?
Only whether a person is sitting in the vehicle. Both mean you can book a ride, so both are treated as rideable here — the distinction is disclosed because riders often care, not because it changes availability.
Does a city being listed mean the whole city is covered?
No, and this is the most common misreading. Service areas are usually a subset of a metro, sometimes a small one. The city record tells you a service exists there; it cannot tell you whether it reaches your street, because operators do not publish machine-readable boundaries.