Waymo has three new cities in its sights as it continues to expand around the United States: Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa.
The company said on Thursday that it will start manually driving its vehicles in those cities “in the coming days,” ahead of testing and validating its driverless tech, before eventually launching a commercial robotaxi service in each.
These cities join a growing list of locations where Waymo has launched or plans to launch its robotaxis. The Alphabet-owned company is already offering rides on surface streets and highways in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, and is live in Austin and Atlanta as well.
In 2026, Waymo plans to expand to Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle and Washington, D.C. It’s also testing in New York City, and plans to offer commercial rides internationally starting with London and Tokyo.
The new cities announced Thursday could present some unique challenges for Waymo, though. Minneapolis has perhaps the harshest winters of the cities Waymo has chosen to date. Snow could challenge Waymo’s perception stack, and the lack of traction will give its automated driving system some extra work to do. New Orleans, meanwhile, has a lot of tight, one-way streets that are heavily used by pedestrians — especially in the French Quarter.
As Waymo has expanded, it’s been working with partners in a number of cities to help operate its fleets. Its vehicles are on Uber’s app in Austin and Atlanta; African mobility and fintech company Moove took over operations in Phoenix (and will do the same in Miami), and Avis Budget Group will manage the fleet in Dallas. It’s not immediately clear if Waymo will lean on similar partnerships in the new cities.
Waymo’s so far outpacing other players when it comes to expanding to new cities. Amazon-owned Zoox is offering free rides in its custom-built robotaxi in Las Vegas, and letting members of its early-rider program take trips in San Francisco while it awaits a necessary exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to launch full commercial operations.
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Tesla, meanwhile, is trying to expand its nascent robotaxi service, which still has safety monitors in the driver’s seat. This week, the company received a permit to start offering rides in Arizona, in addition to Austin and San Francisco.
