Waymo robotaxis will now take passengers on freeways in three major U.S. cities, marking a major milestone for the driverless, ride-hailing company.
Alphabet-owned Waymo on Wednesday said it will begin offering those types of trips in the San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles markets “when a freeway route is meaningfully faster.” The Google sister company will gradually extend freeway trips to more riders and locations over time.
Although Waymo’s driverless cars have previously taken passengers on smaller highways and side streets, Wednesday’s expansion marks the first time the company will take payment from public riders to go on freeways with higher speed limits.
“Freeway driving is one of those things that’s very easy to learn, but very hard to master when we’re talking about full autonomy without a human driver as a backup, and at scale,” Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said at a press event ahead of the announcement. “It took time to do it properly.”
Waymo vehicles will generally travel up to a freeway’s maximum posted speed limit, which is 65 mph in many cases, the company said. However, a spokesperson confirmed, the robotaxis may sometimes go a few miles over the limit for safety purposes in extraordinary circumstances.
Freeway operations required expanded operational protocols, including coordination with safety officials at the California Highway Patrol and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Waymo said. The company also installed additional infrastructure needed to charge its fleet of electric robotaxis given the freeway expansion.
Over the last year, Waymo has offered select Alphabet employees robotaxi freeway rides around San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix in preparation for Wednesday’s launch, said Waymo Product Manager Jacopo Sannazzaro.
The company has been testing on freeways for more than a decade in total, he added. Besides testing on public roads and closed courses, Waymo also conducts testing in simulation to determine how its vehicles will respond to both typical and hard-to-replicate events, like merging onto freeways, lane-splitting motorcyclists or another car flipping over.
CNBC took a freeway test ride in a Waymo in the San Francisco Bay Area, from YouTube’s offices in San Bruno to San Mateo and back. The ride went on and off ramps along the California 101 seamlessly, with no incidents.
Waymo’s continued expansion
After already launching its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles, Waymo has also announced plans to expand to Miami, San Diego and Washington, D.C., in 2026. The company is also testing its vehicles in New York City, Tokyo and plans to begin offering rides to the public in London next year.
Waymo on Wednesday also announced that it’s expanding its service footprint in the San Francisco Bay Area to San Jose. That includes rides to and from San Jose Mineta International Airport, marking the company’s second international airport destination. The SJC airport plans were first announced in September.
In 2023, Waymo launched at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which has become its most popular destination in the Phoenix metropolitan service area.
The company expanded its service in March to include an additional 27 square miles of coverage in the region, including cities like Mountain View and Palo Alto. After the Wednesday expansion, Waymo now offers service in about 260 square miles of Silicon Valley.
Would-be Waymo competitor Tesla also takes passengers to and from SJC. Customers can hail a ride via Tesla’s “Robotaxi” app, but that name is not precisely descriptive. Tesla only operates a car service with human drivers on board, not a commercial robotaxi service like Waymo’s, due to a mix of technical limits and permit requirements in California.
