Waymo's Driverless Taxis Expand to Over 20 U.S. Cities

The self-driving taxi service owned by Alphabet expanded its development strategy on Thursday, including Minneapolis, Tampa, and New Orlean...

The self-driving taxi service owned by Alphabet expanded its development strategy on Thursday, including Minneapolis, Tampa, and New Orleans.

• Waymo is now aiming to extend its autonomous taxi service to a minimum of 20 cities.
• The most recent update features Minneapolis, Tampa, and New Orleans.
• Waymo is currently active in five cities, but it has ambitious plans to expand into many more in the near future.

The future of mobility is electric and self-driving. Although the electric vehicle segment has faced some challenges in the U.S. recently, the autonomous vehicle sector is advancing at an accelerated pace.

Numerous companies are making progress, but one is leading the way: Waymo. The driverless taxi company, owned by Alphabet, announced on Thursday that it will extend its services to Minneapolis, Tampa, and New Orleans. It intends to begin road testing in these cities "in the near future."

Let's go back and summarize what this implies for Waymo. Its rapid series of announcements can be challenging to follow. Considering this new development, Waymo now intends to provide autonomous rides in at least 20 cities around the world.

Here is a list of the cities where Waymo is currently providing a paid service, or has announced intentions to do so:

Waymo has mentioned that several of these cities—such as Dallas, Washington, D.C., Nashville, and London—are expected to be operational in 2026. Some locations do not have a specific schedule, as the company plans to start services once it finishes both manual and autonomous testing. Waymo has also not disclosed when itspurpose-built Zeekr van will hit the streets.

For the time being, the company's modified Jaguar I-Pace, equipped with the fifth-generation Waymo Driver, is managing all of its rides. However, the Zeekr and an adaptedHyundai Ioniq 5, which will utilize its next-generation technology, are soon to arrive.

Waymo initially tested its service with a small group of users in Phoenix in 2017, later expanding to offer public access in the same city in 2020. The service launched public rides in San Francisco in 2024, soon after in Los Angeles. Austin and Atlanta joined this year, but only via the Uber application.

Now the company claims its technology has advanced to a stage where it can grow at a faster pace than previously.

"The Waymo Driver is becoming more skilled and adaptable, and we have managed to extend our operations to each new city faster than before," said Ethan Teicher, a Waymo spokesperson, in an email.

With the speed of its announcements and growth, the company is outpacing all other competitors in the robotaxi industry.

Amazon's Zoox just introduced shared transportation services in San FranciscoHowever, they are free and only accessible to a few people in a specific part of the city. Tesla has ambitious plans to extend its service nationwide, but currently, it only operates driverless Model Ys in Austin, and there is still a safety monitor seated in the front. May Mobility has also not moved beyond the trial phase, although it did secure a collaboration to include autonomous rides in the Lyft app in Atlanta.

• Tesla Cybercab Manufacturing to Start in April 2026, Says Elon Musk
• Tesla Claims Autopilot Is Improving. However, It Is Having More Crashes
• Tesla Receives Permission to Introduce Robotaxi Service in Arizona (Revised)
• Waymo's Self-Driving Taxis Will Expand to Five Additional U.S. Cities

The competition is still ongoing. And companies like Uber are forming alliances constantly, including withLucid and Nuro to introduce Lucid Gravity robotaxi vehicles. 

Additionally, there remains the issue of how swiftly and effectively Waymo can establish its service in all these new cities almost at the same time. The past few years have demonstrated that Waymo's autonomous taxis are dependable and efficient in the cities where they are currently operating. Moreover, they have managed to accumulate hundreds of thousands of rides each week. Now, the company must expand this business.

If 2024 and 2025 were the years in which Waymo demonstrated that its robotaxi service could progress from a slow start to steady movement, 2026 will be when we find out if it can accelerate.

Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com