Waymo Receives Permission to Operate in New York City

­Autonomous vehicle giant Waymo has taken perhaps its biggest step forward by officially entering the largest U.S. metropolitan area.

Back in 2021, Waymo used its Chrysler Pacifica minivans to painstakingly map out the whole of New York City in a bid to deploy its autonomous vehicles, and the company officially applied for a permit back in June.

And according to TechCrunch, Waymo’s subsequently been addressing a mountain of housekeeping, like meeting with lawmakers and NGOs like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, coordinating with first-responders, and submitting a testing plan to the local Department of Transportation (DOT) and a safety plan detailing the qualifications of the vehicle operators.

To that point, the company’s eight Jaguar I-Pace SUVs that it’s allowed to deploy can’t operate 100% autonomously and they can’t pick up passengers – the vehicles must include a “trained AV-specialist behind the wheel at all times” with at least one hand on the wheel.

Curiously, Annabel Chang, head of U.S. state and local public policy at Waymo, either misspoke or has a very generous definition of “autonomous” when she boasted that “With over 10 million rides completed in five major U.S. cities and a strong safety record, we’re proud to be working with leaders to lay the groundwork to bring this life saving technology to New Yorkers one day, beginning with receiving the first-ever permit issued in the city to drive autonomously.” (emphasis mine)

All parties involved might be trumpeting this momentous development, but under the prescribed limitations, the Waymo “autonomous” vehicle technology is nearly indistinguishable from the “driver assistance” tech in vehicles like Teslas.

That said, Waymo has a pretty decent safety record during its time in California, Arizona, and Texas, with 696 Waymo accidents reported between 2021 and 2024 and 137 incidents in 2025 (as of March 17).

While 2025 finally saw the first fatality involving a Waymo vehicle, it wasn’t necessarily the company’s fault, and in fact, a huge percentage of those accidents merely involved Waymo vehicles.

So no matter how autonomous these vehicles actually are, this is a huge step forward for the technology.

After the pilot testing period ends in late September 2025, Waymo can apply for an extension.