Waymo’s self-driving Jaguar taxi rides on the streets of Los Angeles, California on March 14, 2024.
Tama Mario | Getty Images
Waymo announced Tuesday that it will bring its robotaxi service to new cities in Texas and Florida in 2026.
of alphabetThe company-owned company said in a blog post that it plans to begin operating its vehicles without human driver assistants in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Miami and Orlando in the coming weeks, before opening to the public in those markets next year.
“Waymo has entered a new phase of commercial scale, doubling the number of cities we operate in without professionals in our vehicles,” Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo’s chief product officer, said in an emailed statement Tuesday.
Waymo previously announced plans to launch robotaxi services in Dallas and Miami in 2026, but Tuesday was the first time the company revealed plans to launch the service in other cities next year. Waymo will initially offer fully self-driving travel to employees in these markets, a spokesperson said.
The company is preparing to expand its paid robotaxis service in 2026. The company previously announced plans to expand to Detroit, Las Vegas, Nashville, San Diego, Washington DC, and London in 2026.
Waymo has also begun testing vehicles in New York City and Tokyo.
Waymo last week began offering freeway routes in the San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles markets. Over time, Google’s sister companies will gradually expand highway travel to more passengers and locations.
Waymo already operates paid robotaxis services in Austin, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. The company announced in May that it has provided more than 10 million paid rides since first launching in 2020.
Waymo’s Florida and Texas expansion announcements were made on the same day. AmazonZoox, owned by , has begun offering its driverless vehicles to some customers in San Francisco. San Francisco will be the second market where Zoox will offer the free service, after launching in Las Vegas in September. Zoox told CNBC in September that it had deployed 50 robotaxis between San Francisco and Las Vegas.
Attention: Waymo starts offering paid robotaxis rides on highways
