Waymo has officially launched the process of making its robotaxi service commercially available to the general public in Silicon Valley, marking a significant milestone in the race for fully autonomous transportation.
The company announced that its Waymo One ride-hailing app will now be available 24/7 to select customers across a 27-square-mile service area in California, covering Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and parts of Sunnyvale.
The move cements Waymo’s status as the undisputed leader in the driverless ride-hailing industry, expanding its presence in the very region where its self-driving journey began. This comes as a major blow to Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk once touted robotaxis as an integral part of the EV company’s future—a vision that has failed to materialize.
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Waymo Leaves Tesla in the Dust on Robotaxis
While Waymo has spent over a decade refining its autonomous technology and deploying commercial services across U.S. cities, Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions have stalled completely. Musk once promised that Tesla vehicles would be capable of full self-driving and operating as robotaxis by 2020, allowing Tesla owners to send their cars out to pick up passengers while they slept or worked. He predicted that a Tesla owner could make up to $30,000 per year from their car acting as an autonomous taxi.
However, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system remains far from achieving true autonomy, and Musk himself has gradually stopped mentioning robotaxis as a near-term goal. Tesla’s focus has instead shifted toward increasing EV production, developing humanoid robots, and improving battery technology.
Waymo, on the other hand, has moved beyond mere promises. The company has successfully launched commercial, fully driverless taxi services in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, while Tesla has yet to deploy a single operational robotaxi anywhere in the world.
A Strategic Expansion in a Historic Region
Waymo’s decision to bring its fully driverless ride-hailing service to Silicon Valley carries significant symbolic weight. This region is not only home to Google’s self-driving car project, which eventually evolved into Waymo, but it is also where Tesla’s headquarters are located—making this a direct challenge to Musk’s unfulfilled ambitions.
Waymo was originally developed under Google X, the company’s high-risk research and development lab before it spun off into an independent entity under Alphabet. The project dates back to 2009, when Google’s co-founders, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page, challenged engineers to develop a self-driving system capable of completing ten 100-mile autonomous routes without human intervention. By the end of that year, the first of those routes had been completed, and by mid-2010, the project had achieved its ambitious goal.
Since then, Waymo has emerged as a leader in the autonomous vehicle industry, deploying its commercial driverless taxi service in multiple U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
Now, by bringing its commercial robotaxi operations back to Silicon Valley, the company is effectively coming full circle.
“This is where Waymo began and where we’re headquartered,” said Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo’s Chief Product Officer, in a statement. “Now we’re bringing seamless rides, safer streets, and sustainable transportation to our local community.”
Waymo’s Expanding Footprint and Partnership with Uber
The announcement also follows Waymo’s recent partnership with Uber in Austin, Texas, where Uber customers can now hail a Waymo robotaxi directly from the Uber app within a designated service area. That collaboration is set to expand to Atlanta later this year, marking another milestone in Waymo’s strategic push to integrate its self-driving technology into existing ride-hailing platforms.
Despite the partnership with Uber, Waymo continues to independently operate its own ride-hailing app, Waymo One, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The company’s decision to maintain its own direct-to-customer service model, even as it collaborates with Uber, reflects its broader ambition of becoming a dominant player in the autonomous transportation market.
Challenges and the Future of Autonomous Ride-Hailing
Waymo’s gradual rollout strategy in Silicon Valley suggests a cautious approach as it works to refine its self-driving technology and build public trust in autonomous transportation. The company, like other players in the industry, continues to face challenges related to safety regulations, public skepticism, and occasional incidents involving its self-driving cars.
Additionally, the success of Waymo’s commercial expansion will depend on factors such as user adoption rates, regulatory support, and the ability to scale up operations beyond initial invite-only access.