Waymo is opening its robotaxi service to the public in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando as the Alphabet-owned self-driving car company picks up the pace of expansion.
Waymo’s rollout will mimic previous public rollouts in cities. Some riders who have downloaded the Waymo app will receive an invitation to their first ride starting Tuesday. New riders will be added over time, and eventually anyone who downloads the app will be able to hail a ride.
The addition of new cities adds an incredible dimension to Waymo’s rapid expansion drive. Last February, Waymo was operating a commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix and parts of its surrounding suburbs, parts of Los Angeles, and San Francisco. At the time, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Waymo provides more than 200,000 rides each week.
Over the past 12 months, Waymo has expanded in its existing markets, particularly San Francisco, with its service area now extending along Highway 101 through many towns and all the way to San Jose. Currently, you have access to three airports, including San Francisco International Airport. The service has been launched in Atlanta and Austin in partnership with Uber. The service area has been expanded to include expressways in three cities. Last month, it opened its robotaxi service to the public in Miami.
Waymo tends to keep its current user numbers in check. The last time we provided an update, Waymo said it was offering more than 400,000 rides a week, but now the actual number is likely much higher.
Waymo doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The company plans to launch robotaxi services in several more cities this year, including Denver, London, and Washington, DC. Now, it’s armed with another $16 billion in a round led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital that values Waymo at $126 billion.
Waymo currently has approximately 3,000 robotaxis in six markets: Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. With the addition of these four new cities, that size will likely grow, but don’t expect it to balloon right away.
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Waymo spokesman Chris Bonelli said the company plans to deploy dozens of vehicles in these cities and coordinate with users to scale up in the coming months.
The company’s workforce will also expand to match this expansion. The staff that monitors robotaxis and responds to specific requests for information from Waymo’s self-driving system (for example, when a robotaxis encounters a difficult situation on a public road) could expand, but Waymo did not provide details. The company said only that it has an extensive planning process in place to ensure its operations are appropriately sized for growth. Waymo recently revealed that about 70 of these people are called remote assistance workers (RAs).
All of this moves toward the lofty goals that Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana set last year — and those goals remain even as the company faces increased scrutiny and scrutiny from safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation last month after a Waymo robotaxi crashed into a child at 9 mph near a school in Santa Monica. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating how Waymo’s robotaxis operate around school buses.
Mawakana said in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this month that Waymo plans to provide more than 1 million rides a week by the end of this year, adding that the company is laying the groundwork for robotaxi services in more than 20 cities.
