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As
part of the road map unfurled Thursday, Waymo plans to begin
testing its driverless Jaguars in Miami next year, giving the
robotaxis time to learn their way around Florida's biggest city
before they start charging for rides in 2026. The move comes
less than a month after Waymo opened up its robotaxi service to
anyone looking for a ride in an 80-square-mile
(129-square-kilometer) expanse in Los Angeles, extending its
reach beyond its two major markets in Phoenix and San Francisco.
Waymo also has plans to launch fleets in Atlanta and Austin next
year as part of a partnership with the ride-hailing leader Uber.
The growth spurred Waymo to team up with fleet management
service Moove to oversee maintenance of its robotaxis in
Phoenix, where it now operates about 200 vehicles. Moove also
will help manage the company's robotaxis in Miami.
The steady expansion into new markets is starting to fulfill
what once seemed like a fantastical dream when Google began a
secret self-driving car project dubbed "Chauffeur” in 2009 that
ultimately spun off as Waymo in 2016.
Although Waymo is still piling up substantial losses under its
corporate parent Alphabet Inc., the service now provides more
than 150,000 weekly trips without any history of catastrophic
traffic accidents. That track record has increased confidence
that Waymo will be able to continue to steer its robotaxis into
more markets and eventually produce a steady stream of profits —
an expectation that helped it recently raise $5.6 billion from
Alphabet and a list of other major investors.
Meanwhile, robotaxi rival Cruise is still trying to recover from
a grisly accident last year that culminated in one of its
driverless cars in San Francisco dragging a jaywalking
pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a
human. California regulators suspended Cruise's license in the
aftermath and its once-ambitious expansion plans have been
scaled back by its corporate parent, automaker General Motors.
Having periodically promised a fleet of Tesla robotaxis for
nearly a decade, Tesla CEO Elon Musk renewed the pledge again in
October when he predicted the electric carmaker's "Cybercabs"
will be on U.S. roads in 2026.
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