A rendering of the Sixth-generation Waymo Driver on Hyundai’s all-electric IONIQ 5 SUV. | Supply: Waymo
Waymo plans to deliver its robotaxi service to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. Nonetheless, the unit of Alphabet didn’t specify when it plans to launch companies in these cities.
Waymo is beginning handbook testing with security drivers in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis this week. Waymo began operations in Philadelphia over the summer season, and after a interval of handbook testing, it lately shifted to autonomous testing with security drivers nonetheless current.
Waymo has been quickly saying new cities for its robotaxi service. Two weeks in the past, it introduced it will be bringing its expertise to New Orleans, Minneapolis, and Tampa, Fla. In every of those cities, Waymo stated it’ll start laying the groundwork for a business launch. Nonetheless, it didn’t give a timeline.
Just a few days earlier than that, Waymo stated it’s bringing autonomous automobiles (AVs) to Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, Fla. Every week earlier than that, Waymo introduced its AVs would start providing rides on freeways throughout the San Francisco Bay Space, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Waymo at the moment operates autonomous robotaxis in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco. Within the U.S., Waymo robotaxis have already pushed greater than 10 million paid rides. The Mountain View, Calif.-based firm stated it’s now driving greater than 2 million absolutely autonomous miles and offering over 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 rides per week.
Waymo received The Robotic Report‘s RBR50 Robotic of the 12 months Award for 2025.
Waymo taking over snow, worldwide deployments, and extra in 2026
If every thing goes in line with Waymo’s plans, 2026 is shaping as much as be its most aggressive yr of development. The corporate intends to increase or launch companies in Nashville, Las Vegas, San Diego, Detroit, Washington D.C., Miami, Dallas, Seattle, Houston, Orlando, San Antonio, and Denver within the coming years.
Moreover, the 4 cities that Waymo introduced right this moment all have one thing in frequent: snow. Waymo’s earliest deployments had been in cities with heat climates. Now, cities like Detroit and Minneapolis will mark a few of Waymo’s first deployments in areas that get common snowfall.
As well as, Waymo is planning to deliver its expertise abroad. It stated it needs to deploy in London in 2026, and it has already deployed take a look at automobiles in Tokyo to study native site visitors patterns.
The corporate can also be beginning to deploy its autonomous automobiles for different functions. In October, it partnered with DoorDash to make use of Waymo automobiles for grocery runs, meal orders, and extra in Metro Phoenix.
Waymo dominates the robotaxi house within the U.S., however there are a variety of firms hoping to catch up. In June, Tesla launched a robotaxi service in Austin. Zoox, an Amazon subsidiary, launched its first public service in San Francisco in November. Moreover, Nuro, a Mountain View, Calif.-based startup, lately closed a Sequence E spherical of $203 million at a $6 billion valuation.
