These cities had been particularly chosen to problem Waymo autos since each cities have distinctive layouts and unconventional street designs.
Atlanta
In partnership with Uber, Waymo plans to launch autonomous ride-hailing providers in Atlanta in early 2025. The collaboration will use Waymo’s totally autonomous, all-electric Jaguar I-Tempo autos, with Uber managing and dispatching the fleet via its app.
Miami
Waymo is making ready to introduce its robotaxi service in Miami, with testing of driverless autos set to start in 2025. The corporate goals to launch public ride-hailing providers within the metropolis by 2026.
Tokyo
In December 2024, Waymo introduced its first worldwide enlargement into Tokyo, partnering with Nihon Kotsu and the ride-hailing app GO to combine autonomous know-how into the town’s advanced city surroundings. The preliminary section will deploy 25 operated by hand autos to map key districts, however there are not any quick plans for public ride-hailing.
Along with these new cities, Waymo continues testing in Michigan’s Higher Peninsula, upstate New York, and Truckee, California, to judge driving in several climate situations.
Cruise hits the brakes
As Waymo strikes ahead with enlargement, certainly one of its greatest rivals has pulled the plug on its robotaxi program. GM introduced in December 2024 that the corporate was shutting down Cruise, its autonomous ridesharing service. After almost a decade of improvement costing over $10 billion, GM acknowledged the challenges of scaling this sort of enterprise.
Cruise additionally confronted public scrutiny when a critical accident made headlines in 2023. One in all its autos working in San Francisco hit and dragged a pedestrian 20 ft down the road. This incident led to the suspension of Cruise’s allow, forcing it to halt providers nationwide and inflicting the CEO to resign. Fortuitously, the pedestrian survived.
Ford additionally took a step again from growing robotaxis again in 2022 when it shut down Argo AI, the autonomous car startup it was backing.
In the meantime, Tesla continues to forge forward with testing its Cybercab in Austin regardless of regulatory challenges. Its autonomous taxis will allegedly be out there to the general public by 2027.
