Waymo

Waymo LLC is an American autonomous driving technology company based in Mountain View, California. It is part of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. As of March 2026, Waymo offers public commercial robotaxi services in 10 US cities.

Waymo started from the Stanford Racing Team, which took part in the 2005 and 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenges. Google began developing self-driving technology in January 2009, and announced it in October 2010. In December 2016, the project was named Waymo and became a separate company under Alphabet. By October 2020, Waymo was the first to offer rides to the public without safety drivers in the car.

The company is led by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov.

History

Ground work

Google started working on self-driving technology in January 2009 at the Google X lab, led by Sergey Brin. The team used software and artificial intelligence they made before joining Google. They built cars for races in 2005 and 2007. In 2007, Google hired a team to help improve its Street View.

In 2008, the Street View team began Project Ground Truth to make better road maps.

Pribot

In February 2008, a Discovery Channel producer asked for a self-driving motorcycle. Instead, they turned a Toyota Prius into a self-driving pizza delivery car. The episode showed the car delivering pizza across the San Francisco Bay Bridge in December 2008.

This led Google to start its self-driving car program in January 2009. In 2011, Google bought some companies and their technology.

Project Chauffeur

After testing for two years, Google announced its project in October 2010.

Starting in 2010, some states made new rules for self-driving cars. In 2012, a Prius got a license in Nevada. It was the first self-driving car license in the United States.

In 2014, Google got a patent for a transportation service. In May 2015, Google showed a self-driving car with no steering wheel. By the end of 2015, the project had driven more than a million miles.

Google spent a lot of money on the project from 2009 to 2015.

Waymo

In 2016, Google and Stellantis agreed to buy minivans to test self-driving technology. In December 2016, the project became Waymo, a separate part of Alphabet.

In February 2017, Waymo said Uber took secret information. Uber agreed not to use the secrets. In May 2017, Uber fired someone.

Waymo began testing minivans without safety drivers in Chandler, Arizona in October 2017. Waymo worked with Lyft on testing.

Waymo started testing in Phoenix without safety drivers in November 2017.

In March 2018, Jaguar Land Rover said Waymo ordered many electric SUVs. In October 2018, Waymo got permission to test cars without safety drivers day and night.

In December 2018, Waymo launched Waymo One in Phoenix. In November 2019, Waymo One operated without safety drivers. Waymo One started in San Francisco in March 2022.

In April 2019, Waymo planned to build vehicles in Detroit, creating jobs. Waymo worked with Magna to change cars into self-driving vehicles.

2020s

In March 2020, Waymo Via started after raising money from investors. In May 2020, Waymo raised more money. In July 2020, Waymo announced a partnership with Volvo.

In April 2021, new leaders joined Waymo. Waymo raised more money in June 2021. Waymo started testing in San Francisco in August 2021.

In May 2022, Waymo began looking for riders in Phoenix. In 2023, the Waymo One area grew.

In June 2022, Waymo announced a partnership with Uber. Plans to expand to Los Angeles were announced in late 2022. In January 2023, Waymo would stop its trucking program.

In July 2024, Waymo began testing new self-driving cars. In October 2024, Waymo raised more money to grow its services.

Also in November 2025, the permit area in California expanded.

In January 2026, groups started looking into Waymo’s self-driving taxis for some problems.

In February 2026, Waymo raised more money to grow into new markets.

Lobbying

Waymo talks to leaders to help update laws for self-driving vehicles. In 2024, Waymo spent money on lobbying in the US. In February 2026, Waymo asked the federal government to create the same rules nationwide for self-driving vehicles.

Services

In 2017, Waymo showed four ways to use its self-driving technology: robotaxis, trucking, city buses, and cars. By 2023, it stopped focusing on trucking.

Waymo now offers robotaxis in some cities in the United States, with plans to expand to Japan and the United Kingdom. Riders can call a ride using the Waymo iOS app or Android app. In Austin and Atlanta, people can use the Uber app instead. When the car arrives, riders press a button to start the ride. The car’s steering wheel moves when it turns, and passengers can sit in the front right seat, but not the driver’s seat. Some information from the car’s sensors shows on a screen.

Waymo plans to grow in many places. In the U.S., it talked with officials in Oakland and the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport. By November 2025, Waymo had permission to drive autonomously in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Yolo, and parts of Southern California. There were also early talks with Raleigh in North Carolina and with a state leader in Utah.

Waymo is also talking about expanding to Australia, Canada, Singapore, and South Korea.

In September 2025, Waymo joined Chandler, Arizona’s city to add its service to the city’s small public buses.

Waymo once worked on self-driving trucks but stopped in July 2023 to focus more on robotaxis. It had tested big trucks and worked with companies like Daimler and United Parcel Service.

Waymo also works with Uber Eats and DoorDash to deliver food.

Waymo’s data helps local governments find and fix potholes.

Technology

Google has spent a lot on special computer parts like matrix multiplication and video processing tools. This includes the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which works with Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) and Intel’s central processing units (CPUs) in Waymo cars.

Waymo builds its own self-driving tools, such as sensors, a special vision system, lidar, and radar. These tools help the cars see all around and detect objects far away. The lidar can spot things up to 300 meters (about 980 feet) away, and radar helps the car see past other cars and track moving objects.

Waymo uses a smart computer system called VectorNet to guess where cars will go in busy traffic. It also has a virtual world called Waymo Carcraft, where many fake self-driving cars practice driving in models of real cities like Austin, Texas; Mountain View, California; and Phoenix, Arizona.

Most of Waymo’s self-driving taxis are special Jaguar I-Pace cars. The company plans to add Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Zeekr Ojai cars soon. In February 2026, Waymo said that they have workers who help the cars when needed, but these workers only give advice that the car can choose to follow or ignore.

Operations, efficiency, and safety

Waymo has grown quickly. By September 2025, it provided about 4.75 million passenger miles each month. This needed 6.57 million vehicle miles, which is three times more than in September 2024.

Most trips have just one person in the car. About 44% of the time, the cars travel empty, and a small number of trips get cancelled.

In 2024, Waymo worked with an insurance company to compare safety. They found Waymo had fewer claims than human drivers for injuries and damage to things like cars. Over 25 million miles, Waymo had very few claims compared to what human drivers might have had.

Incidents and controversies

Waymo makes self-driving cars and has faced some challenges.

Sometimes, Waymo cars have had small accidents, like bumping into bicycles or other vehicles. In a few cases, people were hurt, and Waymo worked to make its cars safer.

Waymo cars have also sometimes done things they shouldn’t, like driving where they weren’t supposed to.

There have been discussions in some cities about whether Waymo cars should be allowed to drive. Some city leaders have had questions about safety or how the cars might affect drivers who work for ride services. Waymo has talked with local leaders to address these concerns.

People have also sometimes been upset if Waymo cars made too much noise or got stuck in traffic. Waymo has worked to fix these issues by updating its software and changing how the cars operate.