Self-Driving Waymo Cars Roll Out to 10 Cities Across America

Waymo announced Tuesday it's launching autonomous taxi services in four additional cities in Texas and Florida, bringing its total coverage to 10 major U.S. metropolitan areas. The company currently provides over 400,000 weekly rides and aims to reach 1 million weekly trips by the end of 2026.

Google’s self-driving car company Waymo announced Tuesday it will launch autonomous taxi operations in four additional cities across Texas and Florida, bringing the total number of markets served by its driverless vehicles to 10 major metropolitan areas nationwide.

The company will roll out services in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, Florida, strengthening Waymo’s position as the leader in the autonomous vehicle industry while competitors like Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox continue limited testing in just a handful of locations.

Currently, Waymo’s fleet of self-driving taxis completes more than 400,000 rides each week across six cities where passengers can already book trips: Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas.

The company runs its transportation service through its proprietary mobile application in most locations, though passengers in Atlanta and Austin must book rides through Uber’s platform instead.

This four-city expansion represents a major milestone in Waymo’s ambitious plan to reach 1 million paid rides weekly by late 2026. While the company hasn’t revealed which markets will come next, it has identified eight potential cities including Las Vegas, Washington, Detroit, and Boston, with London likely becoming its first international destination.

To fund additional autonomous vehicles, Waymo secured $16 billion in recent funding, pushing the company’s total valuation to $126 billion. This massive valuation has sparked rumors that parent company Alphabet might eventually separate Waymo as an independent business, nearly two decades after it started as a confidential Google initiative in 2009.

While Waymo is expanding to these four new cities, the driverless taxi service will initially operate with restricted access for select users of its mobile app in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando before becoming widely available to all customers in those areas.