Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon's Zoox on September 2 separately announced expansions of their autonomous ride-hailing operations into new U.S. cities, escalating a three-way race with Tesla to scale driverless transport nationwide4,6,8.
Waymo said it would begin welcoming its first public riders in Denver, San Diego, and Tampa, bringing its fully autonomous ride service to 14 cities7,9. The company said it would gradually expand access to riders in the three cities. The expansion adds Colorado to the list of U.S. states where Waymo offers driverless taxis.
The service will start with dozens of vehicles and scale to hundreds over time. In Denver and San Diego, rides will be offered exclusively via the Waymo Ojai, a van-like electric robotaxi built for Waymo by the Chinese company Zeekr. The Ojai features a cabin with sliding doors and two large LED displays for rear-seat riders, and its deployment marks the first time Waymo's 6th-generation Driver system has been deployed at scale. The expansion adds roughly 150 square miles of service territory to Waymo's coverage map.
In San Diego, Waymo will begin full service with a "few dozen" self-driving cars operating within 40 square miles, stretching from Pacific Beach south to Sunset Cliffs, southeast to Barrio Logan, and northeast to Normal Heights1. The company is awaiting a city permit to serve San Diego International Airport. The California Public Utilities Commission approved Waymo's expansion permit for San Diego just weeks prior.
In Tampa, Waymo's initial service area covers nearly 50 square miles, including Hyde Park, Westshore, Water Street, and Ybor City2. The company spent about two months testing on Tampa-area roads before the public launch. Waymo already operates in Miami, Orlando, the San Francisco Bay area, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, and is available via the Uber app in Austin and Atlanta.
"Tampa's innovative spirit continues to draw companies that are on the forefront of technology to our city," Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said. Waymo said tens of thousands of people in the three new cities have signed up to express interest in riding.
Zoox, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, said it would begin testing in Houston and San Diego, bringing its presence to 12 U.S. locations. The company will initially use retrofitted test vehicles, specifically Toyota Highlanders equipped with cameras, lidar, and radar, for manual mapping and testing before deploying its purpose-built driverless robotaxis. Those purpose-built vehicles contain no driving controls and feature carriage-style rows facing each other with sliding glass doors14.
"San Diego is a long-term focus for us," said Zoox spokesperson Marisa Wiggam. "We already maintain a local office here and plan to build a local depot for vehicle charging and maintenance, creating new jobs in the area". Zoox's test fleet will have human safety drivers for the first few months while mapping neighborhoods including Little Italy, the Gaslamp Quarter, Old Town, and North Park.
Zoox started offering paid rides in Las Vegas in August after carrying passengers for free in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Austin, and Miami as part of its testing program. The company was founded in 2014 and began testing vehicles in Las Vegas in 2019.
The expansions arrive amid local political friction. San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who chairs the Taxi Advisory Committee, has opposed autonomous vehicle expansion in the city, and the Metropolitan Transit System board voted 12-1 in January to approve a resolution opposing Waymo's robotaxi expansion. "Autonomous vehicles don't just change how people move. They literally replace people," Elo-Rivera said.
Waymo is also pushing internationally, having said in August it would begin testing in Munich ahead of a planned commercial launch in Germany toward the end of 2027.
ANALYSIS The simultaneous announcements from Waymo and Zoox in the same city on the same day underscore how directly the two companies are now competing for geographic coverage, with Waymo holding a clear operational lead at 14 cities versus Zoox's 12 testing locations.