Waymo made a big splash last week when it announced a major expansion across the Bay Area, but despite the regulatory green light it’s still far from clear when the company will be able to start cars on its new routes. The Mountain View-based autonomous ride-hailing service announced Friday that it received approval from the California Public Utility Commission to expand the company’s footprint across the region, along with other major California metro areas. The California Department of Motor Vehicles released an updated map showing Waymo’s new approved operating range in Northern California, including the addition of Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Marin, Sonoma and Solano counties. But Bay Area residents who want to order a Waymo for a day-trip to Calistoga for wine tasting and mud baths will still need to wait for the company to build-out its physical and digital infrastructure to accommodate riders beyond the San Francisco peninsula. How quickly Waymos will roll out over the Bay Bridge and beyond depends on numerous factors, said Scott Moura, an associate professor at the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies with an expertise in autonomous vehicles. Though Waymo is leading the driverless race against competitors Tesla, Amazon’s Zoox and General Motors’ Cruise, he said, the company has shown a patience with new initiatives, an approach which flies in the face of Mark Zuckerberg’s famous quote about tech development, “Move fast and break things.” “It’s not a time-based thing,” said Moura when asked about how long it might take Waymo to get its new service areas up and running. “It’s a performance-based thing. It’s not going to be immediately, that’s for sure. It’s not likely in the next few weeks. In the next months, it’s possible it might get to the East Bay. It’s very likely in the next year.”