Enlarge / A Cruise robotaxi test vehicle in San Francisco. (credit: Cruise)

The autonomous vehicle developers Cruise and Waymo both got a little closer to running true driverless robotaxi services in and around San Francisco. In May, both Waymo and Cruise applied to the California Department of Motor Vehicles for deployment permits (as opposed to the testing permits that have allowed non-commercial operations). On Thursday, the DMV issued autonomous deployment permits to both companies, which is a necessary step if the robotaxis are to charge passengers for their rides.

San Franciscans might have to be night owls to catch a Cruise; the DMV's authorization gives Cruise permission to operate on surface streets within a geofenced area of San Francisco between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am. Cruise's autonomous vehicles are allowed to operate in light rain and light fog, but they aren't allowed to exceed 30 mph (48 km/h).

Waymo is allowed to operate over a wider area; the DMV's authorization is "within parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties." These robotaxis are also trusted to cope with light rain and light fog and are approved for speeds of up to 65 mph (105 km/h).

Enlarge / In 2023, Motional will begin operating Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis. (credit: Motional)

In 2023, you'll be able to take Lyft rides in autonomous Hyundai Ioniq 5s with self-driving systems provided by Motional—as long as you live in the right city. This week, we got our first look at the sensor-bedazzled battery-electric vehicles, which add lidar, radar, and cameras to one of the best-looking new vehicles we've seen in some time .

Motional was created in 2020 by Hyundai Motor Group and automotive supplier Aptiv, which had been testing its level 4 autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas for years. When I rode in an autonomous Aptiv vehicle during CES in 2018 , it was with a safety driver behind the wheel. But in February of this year, Motional began fully driverless testing in Las Vegas. The company said it completed over 100,000 passenger rides without incident between beginning operations and removing the safety drivers.

Motional has worked with Hyundai to integrate the sensor suite and other hardware into the Ioniq 5, and Motional President and CEO Karl Iagnemma told TechCrunch that the robotaxis will roll off the line in South Korea, just like normal Ioniq 5s. "This is not a scenario where we’ll take a base vehicle, move it to a different line, take the components off, and then reintegrate or retrofit it," he said. The cars will still have steering wheels, and passengers will not be allowed to ride in that seat.

Enlarge / One of Waymo's sensor-studded Jaguar I-Paces observes a pedestrian crossing the road in front of it. (credit: Waymo)

The day when robotaxis roam the streets of San Francisco looking for fare-paying customers is getting closer. This week, Reuters reported that both Waymo and Cruise have applied to California's Department of Motor Vehicles for permits to deploy driverless vehicles . The permit on its own isn't sufficient to begin operating a commercial robotaxi service, but it is an important milestone on the way to achieving that.

For several months now , Waymo has operated a fully driverless commercial taxi service in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. But as Ars alum Tim Lee wrote recently, " Suburban Phoenix is a terrible place to run a taxi service ."

A sun-blessed suburb in the Southwest, designed with the car in mind as the primary mode of transport, is as close to easy mode for an autonomous vehicle as it's possible to get, outside the confines of private test tracks or a gigantic retirement village . That in turn means that the Phoenix suburbs have limited value when it comes to teaching an autonomous vehicle how to cope with the big bad world. And since having a car is virtually a prerequisite for living in a suburb like Chandler, the people who live there don't need to use taxis often.