The only surprising thing about this is that other states did not require changes in law. It's Good, Actually, that big companies are (sometimes) bound by the same laws that bind the rest of us.

In any case, there are more than 2-3 "blue" states. We can note that it's also not running in cold "red" states either. The climate angle fits the data best and aligns with what Waymo says, which aligns with what we have known about the tech for at least a decade.

(That note also suggests they are still testing their cold-weather kit and are not quite ready.)

1 - https://waymo.com/blog/shorts/back-to-boston/

In reality I think you can get better experiences than a taxi with a rideshare service (which they really aren't for a very long time), but it's very hit or miss.

So less consistently bad as a taxi service... but far from consistently good.