Waymo’s robotaxi expansion accelerates with 3 new cities
Waymo said Monday it will launch a robotaxi service in Detroit, Las Vegas, and San Diego as the Alphabet-owned company hits the accelerator on its expansion plans.
The announcement illustrates Waymo’s recent evolution from autonomous vehicle technology developer to commercial enterprise. It also follows comments by Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, who said last week during TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 that it is imperative the company scales.
“By the end of 2026, you should expect us to be offering 1 million trips per week,” Mawakana said at the time.
Waymo completed more than 250,000 rides per week as of April. The company has since added more, although the company has not shared a specific number.
Waymo tested its technology for years in Silicon Valley before launching a commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix, followed by the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. In the past year, the company has brought its robotaxis to Atlanta and Austin in partnership with Uber. Waymo has also announced plans to expand its commercial business to several new markets in 2026, including Denver, Miami, Nashville, London, Seattle, and Washington DC.
Waymo said Monday it plans to roll out a mix of self-driving Jaguar I-Pace and Zeekr RT vehicles to the three markets this week. The public won’t have access right away, however.
Waymo’s go-to-market strategy typically begins with human drivers manually operating the vehicles to map city streets. The human safety operator is eventually removed and the autonomous vehicles, which are equipped with cameras, radar, and lidar sensors as well as self-driving software, navigate on their own. After a period of driverless testing, Waymo offers access to employees, media, and some consumers before eventually opening up the robotaxi service to the public.
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Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley said in a statement that the “introduction of Waymo and its autonomous driving technology is not a science experiment, but rather a proven, safe, new alternative designed to help our residents and the millions of visitors who come to our city get around — from the Strip and beyond.” Berkley added that the city is committed to ensuring this technology is adopted responsibly.
Waymo is already familiar with these three cities. The company has brought its autonomous vehicles to Detroit, Las Vegas, and San Diego before. Waymo also has an engineering team based in the Detroit area. The company says it is prepared for the snowy conditions in Detroit after spending multiple seasons driving across the metro Detroit area and the Upper Peninsula to expand its winter weather capabilities.
Waymo noted that its rapid expansion is thanks to the generalized approach of its self-driving system. That growth has helped make Waymo the dominant player in the robotaxi market. However, there are other companies also making a play for market share.
Zoox operates a free robotaxi service in Las Vegas, a city where it has tested and developed its tech for years. Tesla also has a robotaxi service, which still has humans in the passenger seat, in parts of Austin as well.
Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal.
