Overview
- Waymo began paid robotaxi rides in Las Vegas on Monday, Sept. 14, inviting people from a waitlist of more than 100,000 to hail dozens of sixth-generation Ojai minivans within a roughly 24-square-mile service area.
- Nevada regulators authorized commercial robotaxi permits in Clark County that allow Waymo to deploy up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles over the next year and also awarded allocations to Tesla and Uber partners.
- In Nashville, Waymo and Lyft launched a dual-app dispatch model that lets riders book the same Waymo vehicles through both Waymo’s app and Lyft’s app, and Lyft’s Flexdrive will open an 80,000-square-foot depot in October to manage charging, maintenance, and cleaning.
- Waymo and Japanese partners GO and Nihon Kotsu are targeting a fully driverless Tokyo taxi service in 2027 that would start with a small fleet and grow toward about 100 vehicles if regulators and local validation clear the plan.
- Waymo now operates in more than a dozen U.S. cities with a fleet above 4,000, and its near-term growth will hinge on local permits, depot and fleet partners such as Moove and Flexdrive, and commercial tensions from non-exclusive dispatch deals that affect drivers, platform economics, and competition.