Waymo to Test Self-Driving Taxis in 10 New Cities This YearWaymo to Test Self-Driving Taxis in 10 New Cities This Year

Self-driving company Waymo aims to test in more than 10 new cities over the next year as it seeks to expand its leadership in the sector in the United States.

In a post on X, the company confirmed: “On the road again: As Waymo prepares for broader scale, we’re embarking on our largest road trip to date, visiting 10+ cities in 2025. First up: Las Vegas and San Diego.”  

The company also subsequently confirmed it would be returning to Washington, D.C., where it conducted some testing last year.

The Waymo “road trip” program is its methodology of assessing its tech in different locations.

As the company explains: “To bring the benefits of our technology to more people in more places and deliver on our mission to improve road safety, we take the Waymo Driver on new trips to regions where the driving culture and conditions differ from the areas we regularly operate.”

This usually involves initially introducing a small fleet of its autonomous vehicles (AVs) – generally less than 10 – to the roads, which are operated by human drivers and not available to the public. Over time they become more familiar with their surroundings, and can begin driving autonomously. These “driverless” journeys, in turn, provide broader insights for the tech generally which can be applied across the board on the entire Waymo fleet.

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Testing in Las Vegas and San Diego will present contrasting challenges for the Waymo robotaxis.

Vegas, of course, is no stranger to self-driving cabs, with Motional’s Hyundai Ioniq 5s having operated there and Amazon’s Zook planning to launch a ride-sharing service in the city this year. Regular heavy traffic and the chaos of the Strip – where there’s a vast collection of hotels and casinos, all with specific drop-off areas – make the city a testing challenge for AVs.

San Diego, meanwhile, is considered to be an environment that is more similar to the cities where Waymo already successfully operates, and will be used as a gauge as to how quickly the self-driving taxis can adapt to an environment they have no experience of by using insights learned elsewhere.

Waymo now has firmly established services in Phoenix and San Francisco and the wider Bay Area, plus is also operating in Los Angeles and Austin. Last year it announced it will offer self-driving taxis through Uber in Atlanta in 2025, and it has recently started to offer autonomous rides for employees there. It also aims to launch operations in Miami in 2026 as it builds on the momentum that saw it deliver four million driverless rides across the US last year. 

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Despite this apparent dominance, the self-driving taxi sector is hotting up, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently claiming his company would be ready to start operating in Austin by the middle of this year.