Table of Contents Waymo Is Expanding to Denver and Seattle. Everything to Know About the Robotaxi
Self-driving cars are slowly becoming less sci-fi and more real-world as companies like Waymo, the autonomous arm of Google's parent Alphabet, expand into more cities.
On Tuesday, Waymo shared it's heading to Denver in the fall "to lay the groundwork for a fully autonomous service in the future." The company is also gearing up to expand to Seattle. This comes after Waymo said in an Aug. 29 blog post that it's "entering a new chapter and accelerating our commercial expansion."
The expansions have indeed ramped up in recent months. In late August, New York granted Waymo a permit to test its autonomous vehicles in parts of Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn, with a specialist sitting behind the wheel. Waymo arrived on the city's streets in July to begin manually collecting driving data as it waited to hear about its permit application with the New York City Department of Transportation.
"As autonomous vehicle technology expands across the country, DOT has put in place comprehensive safety guidelines to ensure safe, responsible testing on our city's streets," NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said in a statement. "These requirements will help ensure that the development of this technology is focused, first and foremost, on the safety of everyone who shares our busy city streets."
Waymo currently operates fully autonomous rides for the general public in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Austin, Texas, which use the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace. The vehicles can be summoned either via the Waymo One app or Uber, depending on the city. Waymo plans to begin offering rides in Washington, DC, and Miami starting in 2026. In April, it said it'll begin operating its vehicles on Tokyo's streets, making this the company's first international location.
In July, Waymo shared that it's planning to make its robotaxi service available in Dallas through a partnership with Avis Budget Group, which will manage the fleet. The company has already begun early testing there, and says it plans to offer public rides in the city next year. It's also rolling out a limited fleet of vehicles with human drivers in Philadelphia, with the goal of developing its technology and possibly expanding its ride-hailing service there, too.
In January, Waymo announced it would begin testing with manually driven vehicles in 10 new cities this year, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego. And in April, it said it reached a preliminary agreement with Toyota to "explore a collaboration" geared toward developing autonomous driving tech, which could someday be factored into personally owned vehicles.
Waymo's expansion extends to its manufacturing facilities. In May, the company said it's opening a new, 239,000-square-foot autonomous vehicle factory in the Phoenix area. The plan is to add 2,000 more fully autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to its existing 1,500-vehicle fleet. Notably, Waymo indicated it received its "final delivery from Jaguar" earlier this year, as it plans for future iterations of its driverless rides. Waymo added that the "facility's flexible design" will allow it to integrate its upcoming sixth-generation self-driving technology into new vehicles, starting with the all-electric Zeekr RT.
In October, Waymo also announced that it's partnering with Hyundai to bring the next generation of its technology into Ioniq 5 SUVs. In the years to come, riders will be able to summon those all-electric, autonomous vehicles using the Waymo One app.
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