Waymo is live in San Diego. Most of the county is still outside the line.

Waymo began welcoming its first public riders in San Diego on September 1, 2026, the same day as Denver and Tampa, with access handed out on a rolling basis to people who signed up in the app. The launch zone runs from Pacific Beach down through most of Point Loma, Mission Valley, Uptown and downtown to Barrio Logan, roughly 40 square miles, with little north of I‑8, no freeway driving and no airport trips yet. If you live in La Jolla, Chula Vista, Carlsbad or Escondido, the car can legally come to you and does not. This page is the honest version of what that means if the side of the trade you care about is owning the cars.

The honest status: no San Diego depot yet

You don’t have to live inside the line

DockDuty is an own-from-anywhere platform, and the reservation attaches to the network, not to one city:

• Reserve a stall today — $450, fully refundable until your Cybercab is onboarded, credited in full against the $1,000 onboarding fee.
• Your car will earn at depot #1 in Greater Orlando. We’ll park, charge, clean, and dispatch; you watch it from La Jolla or Chula Vista on the same dashboard our founding owners use today.
• Elect San Diego, CA as your preferred market right in the reservation flow — when the network reaches your part of the map, your preference is already on file.

Want the money math first? Run the Cybercab earnings calculator — set your assumptions, see the full fee breakdown, and have your exact scenario emailed to you. Projections, not guarantees: nobody has fleet-scale Cybercab earnings history yet, including us.

We also track every live US robotaxi market on the US Robotaxi Map — jump to San Diego, updated as markets open and free for anyone to cite.

What about La Jolla, Chula Vista, and the rest of the county?

San Diego is a two-map city, and the two maps are not the same size. The legal map is the DMV’s: on November 21, 2025 the DMV amended Waymo’s deployment permit to add the San Diego area, and the territory reported on August 18, 2026 runs the length of the county — Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach and Del Mar down the coast; Escondido, San Marcos, Vista, Poway, La Mesa, El Cajon and Santee inland; Coronado, National City, Chula Vista and Imperial Beach in the South Bay. The ride map is Waymo’s, and on launch day it was about 40 square miles as described by the Times of San Diego on August 27: Pacific Beach, most of Point Loma, Mission Valley, Uptown, downtown and Barrio Logan, with not much north of I‑8. La Jolla and UC San Diego sit just outside that line. So does every city named above. Permission is county-wide. Service is the central city.

The airport is the same story with a date attached. San Diego International is not in the launch zone, Waymo has said highways and airport trips come in the coming months with no date, and the MTS board voted 12 to 1 on January 15, 2026 for a resolution that supports an outright ban on driverless vehicles at the airport. The CPUC dismissed the MTS protest on August 14, 2026 as outside the advice-letter process, so the airport question is Waymo’s and the airport authority’s to settle, not the city’s. The pattern from every other metro is a dense core first, widening in steps — Orlando’s launch zone still excludes its northern suburbs weeks in.

If you’re reading this as a rider, that’s the whole answer and the map is where we keep it current. If you’re reading it as a would-be owner, the line matters much less than you’d think. The car earns at the depot, not at your address — a Carlsbad owner and a Hillcrest owner have exactly the same economics.

Why San Diego matters to a depot company

California is the one state where the robotaxi rulebook is a ladder you can read rung by rung, and San Diego just climbed all of it. The DMV issues three permits: testing with a driver, driverless testing, and deployment. The CPUC then decides who may carry passengers and charge a fare. Waymo holds every rung. The DMV added the San Diego area to Waymo’s deployment permit on November 21, 2025, and on August 14, 2026 the CPUC’s Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division approved Waymo’s Advice Letters 0004 and 0004-A, effective that day, authorizing fared driverless service in the expanded territory and on the Ojai. Eighteen days later the first public riders got in. Tesla is one rung up from the bottom. On the DMV’s list dated August 12, 2026, Tesla Robotaxi LLC holds a testing permit that requires a driver; it appears on neither the driverless-testing list nor the deployment list, and it holds no CPUC autonomous vehicle permit of any kind. Its Bay Area ride service runs on a charter-party carrier permit, the kind a limousine company holds, and a CPUC deputy executive director said in March 2026 that Tesla “is not operating an autonomous vehicle service.” Where your state falls on that spectrum is its own question, answered state by state here.

The buyers are here too. Californians bought 86,857 new zero-emission vehicles in the second quarter of 2026, 19.1% of new car sales, with battery-electric cars alone at 16.6% against 5.8% nationally, per the California Energy Commission’s July 20, 2026 release. That’s the densest concentration of people already comfortable owning the kind of car a robotaxi is. What none of them have yet is the layer this company runs: the stall, the charging, the cleaning, the dispatch — what a robotaxi depot actually does.

One thing San Diego buyers should know: every robotaxi on San Diego streets today is Waymo’s own fleet — a couple dozen Ojai minivans as of late August, run out of a depot whose address Waymo would not disclose, under a June 15, 2026 deal with Element Fleet Management that covers the charging, energy and maintenance. Zoox said on September 1 that its own safety-driver SUVs will be mapping the city by the end of September and that it plans to build a local depot before it carries a rider. Reuters photographed a row of gold Cybercabs in a San Diego parking lot on August 12, 2026, and nothing on Tesla’s permits changed that day. The Cybercab — the car individual owners will put on a network — has no public order book yet. That’s the window: how to be ready on day one. Electing San Diego in the reserve flow is the clearest signal we get about where the network goes after Florida.

Frequently asked questions

Does Waymo serve La Jolla, Chula Vista, or the San Diego suburbs?

Not yet, and the reason is that San Diego has two maps. The DMV-approved territory reported on August 18, 2026 covers most of the county, from Oceanside and Escondido to Chula Vista and Imperial Beach, but Waymo’s launch zone on September 1, 2026 was about 40 square miles: Pacific Beach, most of Point Loma, Mission Valley, Uptown, downtown and Barrio Logan, with little north of I-8, no freeway driving and no airport trips. La Jolla, UC San Diego, Coronado, National City, Chula Vista, El Cajon, Poway, Escondido, Del Mar, Encinitas, Carlsbad and Oceanside are all permitted and none are served. Waymo says highways, the airport and a bigger zone come in the coming months, with no date committed. If you are looking at this as an owner rather than a rider, the line matters less than you would think, because the car earns at the depot and not at your address.

Does California law allow robotaxis?

Yes, through a permit ladder rather than a single yes. The DMV issues testing-with-a-driver, driverless-testing and deployment permits; the CPUC separately authorizes carrying passengers and charging fares. On the DMV’s deployment list dated November 21, 2025, only Mercedes-Benz, Nuro and Waymo hold deployment permits, and Waymo is the only company with a CPUC driverless deployment permit, the rung that allows fares with nobody behind the wheel. Tesla Robotaxi LLC holds a DMV testing permit that requires a driver (list dated August 12, 2026), no DMV driverless permit and no CPUC autonomous vehicle permit; its Bay Area service runs on a charter-party carrier permit, the kind a limousine company holds. Cities cannot opt out: the San Diego MTS board’s January 15, 2026 resolution went to the CPUC as a protest and was dismissed on August 14, 2026 as outside the advice-letter process. In California the constraint is the ladder, and the ladder is public.

Is there a DockDuty depot in San Diego?

Not yet — and we won’t pretend otherwise. Depot #1 is targeted to open in Greater Orlando in Q4 2026, and our published roadmap is Florida-first (Miami on the ~80% trigger, Tampa following). From there we expand wherever the Cybercab market opens. San Diego is a strong candidate on the merits: a live Waymo market since September 1, 2026, a permit ladder that is written down and public, and a state where 19.1% of new cars sold in the second quarter of 2026 were zero-emission. Registering San Diego interest directly shapes where we build next.

Can I own a Cybercab from California before a San Diego depot exists?

Yes — that’s the point of own-from-anywhere. Your reservation attaches to the DockDuty network, not to one city. Reserve a stall today ($450, fully refundable until your Cybercab is onboarded), your car will earn at depot #1 in Greater Orlando while you watch from La Jolla or Chula Vista. In the reservation flow you can elect San Diego, CA as your preferred market.

How much could a Cybercab make?

Nobody has fleet-scale Cybercab earnings history yet — including us — so treat every number anyone quotes as a projection. The earnings calculator shows the full fee math for your assumptions and can email you your exact scenario.

The zone will grow. Ownership doesn’t have to wait for it.

Reserve a network stall for $450 — fully refundable until your Cybercab is onboarded, credited in full against the $1,000 onboarding fee. Elect San Diego as your preferred market in the flow.

Reserve a stall — $450, refundable Run the earnings math

Own from anywhere — the car earns at the depot. You don't have to live in Florida, or even in the US.