Self-driving company Waymo has added four more cities where it will serve passengers: Denver, San Diego, Las Vegas and Tampa. Waymo’s parent company, Alphabet, announced the expansion on Wednesday.
Waymo’s robotaxi service is currently available in major US cities like San Francisco, San Antonio, Orlando, Phoenix and more. Since the deployment of Waymo’s self-driving cars, Alphabet has relied on electronic vehicles that use AI to detect objects in distinct weather conditions. Its fleet is mainly composed of Fully electric Jaguar I-Pacealthough he recently added the More spacious Ojai, a modified Zeekr vehicle.
Waymo’s newest vehicle, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, will be available with a specialist behind the wheel to validate the hardware and software before launching a public deployment for drivers only.
Waymo said in a blog post that robotaxis added in new cities will initially be available only to Alphabet employees, but will soon open to other riders. The autonomous company has made headlines since 2020 for introducing self-driving taxis to the public, but not always in a positive way.
In recent months, nearly 4,000 Waymos were affected by a recall by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after the robo-taxi entered highway construction zones in Phoenix, Arizona, and San Francisco. The NHTSA report says cars misprioritized other road hazards and failed to recognize construction zones. Additionally, in May, another recall hit Waymo after it was reported that the vehicles were driving on flooded roads.
Despite this debacle, Waymo is actively preparing to launch in New York, Chicago, London and Tokyo. Waymo also faces competition from Zooxanother robotaxi company owned by Amazon, which has continued to expand its operations in cities.
A Waymo representative was not available for comment.
