Overview
- Waymo began offering paid, fully driverless rides to the public Tuesday in Denver, San Diego and Tampa, opening service with dozens of vehicles in each city and planning to scale to hundreds over time.
- The company says its U.S. fleet now exceeds about 4,000 vehicles and delivers more than 500,000 paid robotaxi rides per week while targeting 1 million weekly rides by the end of 2026.
- Denver and San Diego will initially use Waymo’s new Ojai minivan built by Zeekr and running the sixth-generation Waymo Driver, a deployment the company views as its next major vehicle and software platform test.
- Competitors are pressing in: Amazon-backed Zoox is starting mapping and tests with safety drivers in Houston and San Diego after NHTSA approval to deploy thousands of steering-wheel-free taxis, and Tesla has an upcoming Cybercab event that could outline its robotaxi plans.
- Regulators, safety groups and local officials are watching operations closely because weather limits like Denver snow, differing city permits, requests for standardized crash and mileage data, and unclear unit economics will shape how quickly services widen and affect drivers and riders.