A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Waymo on Tuesday said it will bring its robotaxi service to new cities in Texas and Florida in 2026.
The Alphabet-owned company said it plans to start operating its vehicles with no human driver assistants in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Miami and Orlando in the coming weeks before opening service in those markets to the public next year, the company said in a blog.
“Waymo has entered a new phase of commercial scale, doubling the number of cities we operate without a human specialist in the car,” Waymo Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi said in an emailed statement Tuesday.
Waymo had previously announced plans to launch its robotaxi service in Dallas and Miami in 2026, but Tuesday was the first time the company said it planned to launch service next year in the other cities. Waymo will first offer fully autonomous trips to its employees in those markets, a spokesperson said.
The company has been gearing up to expand its paid robotaxis service in 2026. The company previously announced plans to expand to Detroit, Las Vegas, Nashville, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and London in 2026.
Waymo has also begun testing vehicles in New York City and Tokyo.
Last week, Waymo began offering freeway routes in the San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles markets. The Google sister company will gradually extend freeway trips to more riders and locations over time.
Already, Waymo operates its paid robotaxi service in Austin, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The company has provided more than 10 million paid rides since first launching in 2020, the company said in May.
Waymo’s Florida and Texas expansion announcement comes the same day that Amazon-owned Zoox began allowing select San Francisco users to hail its driverless vehicles. San Francisco is the second market where Zoox now offers a free service, after its launch in Las Vegas in September. Zoox has deployed a fleet of 50 robotaxis between San Francisco and Las Vegas, the company told CNBC in September.
WATCH: Waymo launches paid robotaxi rides on freeways
