Waymo is opening its robotaxi companies to the general public in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, because the Alphabet-owned autonomous car firm quickens its tempo of enlargement.
Waymo’s rollout will mimic its public launches in earlier cities. Choose riders who’ve downloaded the Waymo app will obtain an invite to take their first rides, beginning Tuesday. New riders shall be added on a rolling foundation, and ultimately anybody who downloads the app will be capable of hail a trip.
The addition of the brand new cities provides a placing dimension to Waymo’s fast-paced push to broaden. Final February, Waymo was working business robotaxi companies in Phoenix and a few of its surrounding suburbs, components of Los Angeles, and San Francisco. On the time, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned Waymo was offering greater than 200,000 rides each week.
Over the previous 12 months, Waymo has expanded in its present markets, significantly in San Francisco, the place its service space now stretches down Highway 101 via quite a few cities, all the best way to San Jose. It now has entry to a few airports, together with San Francisco Worldwide. It has launched a service in partnership with Uber in Atlanta and Austin. It has expanded its working area to freeways in three cities. And final month it opened its robotaxi service to the general public in Miami.
Waymo tends to carry again on its newest ridership numbers. The final time it supplied an replace, Waymo mentioned it was offering greater than 400,000 rides per week, although the precise quantity is probably going larger by now.
Waymo doesn’t seem like slowing down, both. It’s planning to launch robotaxi companies in a number of extra cities this 12 months, together with Denver, London, and Washington, D.C., to call a number of. And it’s now armed with a further $16 billion raised in spherical led by Dragoneer Funding Group, DST World, and Sequoia Capital that values Waymo at $126 billion.
Waymo at the moment has a fleet of about 3,000 robotaxis which are unfold throughout its six markets of Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Space. That fleet dimension will probably develop with the addition of those 4 new cities, however don’t anticipate it to balloon instantly.
Techcrunch occasion
Boston, MA
|
June 9, 2026
Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli mentioned it can have dozens of automobiles to begin in these cities, and can scale up in coordination with riders over the approaching months.
The corporate’s workforce may even scale alongside this enlargement. The employees who monitor the robotaxis and reply to particular requests for info from the Waymo self-driving system — as an illustration, if a robotaxi encounters a tough situation on public roads — might broaden, though Waymo wouldn’t share specifics. The corporate mentioned solely that it has an intensive planning course of to make sure that its operations are right-sized to its scale because it grows. Waymo not too long ago revealed it employs about 70 of those employees, whom it describes as distant help employees, or RAs.
All of that is pushing towards a lofty purpose Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana laid out final 12 months — and one which hasn’t modified at the same time as the corporate faces elevated scrutiny and investigations by security regulators. The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration opened an investigation after one in all Waymo’s robotaxis final month struck a baby at 6 miles per hour close to a faculty in Santa Monica. The Nationwide Transportation Security Board can also be inspecting how Waymo robotaxis behave round college buses.
Waymo is on monitor to serve a couple of million rides per week by the top of this 12 months, Mawakana mentioned earlier this month in an interview with Bloomberg, including that the corporate is laying the groundwork for robotaxi service in additional than 20 cities.
