Waymo is opening its robotaxi services to the public in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, as the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company quickens its pace of expansion.
Waymo’s rollout will mimic its public launches in previous cities. Select riders who have downloaded the Waymo app will receive an invitation to take their first rides, starting Tuesday. New riders will be added on a rolling basis, and eventually anyone who downloads the app will be able to hail a ride.
The addition of the new cities adds a striking dimension to Waymo’s fast-paced push to expand. Last February, Waymo was operating commercial robotaxi services in Phoenix and some of its surrounding suburbs, parts of Los Angeles, and San Francisco. At the time, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Waymo was providing more than 200,000 rides every week.
Over the past 12 months, Waymo has expanded in its existing markets, particularly in San Francisco, where its service area now stretches down Highway 101 through numerous towns, all the way to San Jose. It now has access to three airports, including San Francisco International. It has launched a service in partnership with Uber in Atlanta and Austin. It has expanded its operating domain to freeways in three cities. And last month it opened its robotaxi service to the public in Miami.
Waymo tends to hold back on its latest ridership numbers. The last time it provided an update, Waymo said it was providing more than 400,000 rides per week, though the actual number is likely higher by now.
Waymo doesn’t appear to be slowing down, either. It is planning to launch robotaxi services in several more cities this year, including Denver, London, and Washington, D.C., to name a few. And it is now armed with an additional $16 billion raised in round led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital that values Waymo at $126 billion.
Waymo currently has a fleet of about 3,000 robotaxis that are spread across its six markets of Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. That fleet size will likely grow with the addition of these four new cities, but don’t expect it to balloon immediately.
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Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli said it will have dozens of vehicles to start in these cities, and will scale up in coordination with riders over the coming months.
The company’s workforce will also scale alongside this expansion. The staff who monitor the robotaxis and respond to specific requests for information from the Waymo self-driving system — for instance, if a robotaxi encounters a tricky scenario on public roads — may expand, although Waymo wouldn’t share specifics. The company said only that it has an extensive planning process to ensure that its operations are right-sized to its scale as it grows. Waymo recently revealed it employs about 70 of these workers, whom it describes as remote assistance workers, or RAs.
All of this is pushing toward a lofty goal Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana laid out last year — and one that hasn’t changed even as the company faces increased scrutiny and investigations by safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation after one of Waymo’s robotaxis last month struck a child at 6 miles per hour near a school in Santa Monica. The National Transportation Safety Board is also examining how Waymo robotaxis behave around school buses.
“Waymo is serving more riders than ever, as we are on track to serve over one million rides per week by the end of this year,” said Mawakana said in a blog post Tuesday, adding that the company is laying the groundwork for robotaxi service in more than 20 cities.
