Waymo Expands Driverless Robotaxi Service to Four US Cities Waymo will begin operating fully driverless robotaxi services in San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa, and Denver, expanding its autonomous ride-hailing network to more than 10 US cities as competition in the sector intensifies. The company will initially offer the service to employees before opening rides to the public, while allowing residents in the four cities to download its app and receive notifications when commercial operations begin. The expansion comes as Uber, Tesla, and Zoox advance their own autonomous mobility strategies through new investments, partnerships, and vehicle deployments. The autonomous driving unit of Alphabet said the four-city expansion represents the next phase of its commercial rollout strategy. Existing Waymo service areas include Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, and San Francisco, where customers can already request fully autonomous rides through the company’s application. Waymo did not provide a timeline for public availability in the new markets but confirmed that operations will begin with employee-only access before transitioning to commercial service. Denver plays a central role in the company’s technical development plans because it allows Waymo to expand operations into regions with winter weather conditions. Among the vehicles planned for deployment is the Ojai, a blue SUV equipped with Waymo’s sixth-generation Driver system, which was developed to operate in snowy environments. To prepare its autonomous driving software, Waymo conducted testing across the Sierra Nevada mountains, as well as in Michigan and New York, where winter conditions provide opportunities to validate system performance. The company also announced that it has begun operating Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles with an autonomous specialist inside the vehicle, a validation step conducted before launching fully driverless operations on a new vehicle platform. According to regulatory filings cited by CNBC, Waymo had approximately 4,000