Get ready, San Francisco: The state government on Thursday approved a major expansion of driverless robotaxi service throughout the city. And get ready, Los Angeles: The industry is planning to push for driverless rides here as soon as it gets permits to do so. The state's green light, on a 3-1 vote by the California Public Utilities Commission, signals a historic turning point for the robotaxi business as it evolves from fascinating experiment to commercial reality. It also marks the beginning of a grand experiment in public safety as thousands of multi-ton vehicles operated via artificial intelligence attempt to safely negotiate the hills and narrow streets of San Francisco. It highlights California's messy multiagency regulation of new automobile technology: Two agencies are in charge of the robotaxi business, the CPUC and the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Waymo has opened up its fully driverless ride-hail service in downtown Phoenix to all members of the general public in a significant expansion of the technology in a major city. The news comes a day after Waymo secured its driverless deployment permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which allows Waymo to charge for autonomous services, such as delivery, in San Francisco -- and it's a step toward full driverless taxi deployment in the Golden State. The company, a subsidiary of Google's parent Alphabet, had previously been operating the driverless service in downtown Phoenix only for people in its'trusted tester' program. Trusted testers were prohibited from sharing their experiences on social media or with journalists and had to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Waymo's offering in downtown Phoenix will allow anyone who downloads the app and hails a ride in Waymo's service area to pay for what the company calls a'rider-only' experience in one of its fleet of Jaguar I-Pace EVs.

AutoX has launched the production of its latest "Gen5 system for fully driverless RoboTaxis". The AutoX Gen5 was launched at the Crowne Plaza Shanghai Anting recently when AutoX founder and CEO, Dr Jianxiong Xiao, unveiled the technology behind the Gen5 system. The Gen5 system has 50 sensors in total, as well as a vehicle control unit of 2,200 TOPS computing power. There are 28 cameras capturing a total of 220 million pixels per second, six high resolution LiDAR offering 15 million points per second, and 4D radar with 0.9-degree resolution encompassing 360 degrees around the vehicle. Using camera and LiDAR fusion perception blind spot modules, the Gen5 system "covers the entire RoboTaxi body with zero blind spots", according to AutoX.

A fleet of driverless autonomous robot taxis could be ferrying passengers around Dubai as early as 2023, according to vehicle manufacturer Cruise. The firm is backed by General Motors and Honda and will use its fully autonomous Origin vehicles, first unveiled in 2019, during the testing phase in Dubai from 2023. If the tests are a success Cruise plans to launch a commercial ride-hailing service in the United Arab Emirates city soon after, although no set date has been revealed. Origin has been designed as a shared use, fully autonomous vehicle from the ground up, with no controls like a steering wheel or pedal seen in other autonomous cars. Cruise says the goal is to have more than 4,000 autonomous ride sharing vehicles operating in Dubai by 2030, with future destinations rolling out over time.

AutoX has become the first in the country to offer public rides in autonomous vehicles without safety drivers. You'll need to sign up for a pilot program in Shenzhen and use membership credits, but after that you can hop in a modified Chrysler Pacifica to travel across town without seeing another human being. As with Waymo One, there is help if you need it. You can talk to customer support reps if you have questions or need help. AutoX is eager to tout its robotaxis' ability to handle real-world conditions after several months of stress testing.

Hong Kong (CNN Business)The world has been inching toward fully autonomous cars for years. In China, one company just got even closer to making it a reality. On Thursday, AutoX, an Alibaba (BABA)-backed startup, announced it had rolled out fully driverless robotaxis on public roads in Shenzhen. The company said it had become the first player in China to do so, notching an important industry milestone. Previously, companies operating autonomous shuttles on public roads in the country were constrained by strict caveats, which required them to have a safety driver inside.

Fully driverless robotaxis are now a practical reality on Chinese roads. AutoX has become the first company to put a fleet of the completely driver-free vehicles on the country's streets, with the cars now roaming Shenzhen. They're not yet available to the public, a spokesperson told TechCrunch, but it's still a significant move. AutoX claims this is possible thanks to a "5th generation" autonomous driving system that includes a pair of LiDAR sensors on the sides, "4D" radar sensors and thorough blind spot sensing. The robotaxis can react to even the smaller objects around them, and the company is touting a battle-tested platform that knows how to navigate everything from illegally-parked cars through to unprotected U-turns.