If you’ve been wanting to hop in a robotaxi in San Francisco, Waymo has good news.
Today, the company took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that it is expanding its robotaxi service into more areas of the city. According to the post, the company’s cars will now be operating in almost 50 square miles of San Francisco. The expanded service starts today for customers using Waymo One, the company’s fully autonomous ride-hailing service.
In a statement to The Verge, Waymo spokesperson Christopher Bonelli said that not everyone in these areas will be able to sign up and immediately get access to the robotaxis in these new areas. According to Bonelli, the company is still adding customers from a waitlist. Customers who are already using the service, however, get immediate access to the newly expanded service areas.
“This territory expansion applies to those riders who currently have access to our service and all those to be added from the waitlist in the near future. We are still seeing very strong demand, so we want to scale responsibly to maintain service quality and good user experience.”
The news comes a day before Waymo will start operating its robotaxis in and around Los Angeles to kick off its “Waymo One Tour.” Over the next few months, the company will be holding “early access” events in a number of cities for residents to try out the fully autonomous ride-hailing service. Below is a list of the cities and dates Waymo will be holding events:
- Santa Monica: October 11, 2023 through October 18, 2023
- Century City: November 20, 2023 through December 17, 2023
- WeHo: December 17, 2023 through January 7, 2024
- Mid City: January 8, 2024 through January 23, 2024
- K-Town: January 24, 2024 through February 8, 2024
- DTLA: February 9, 2024 through March 3, 2024
San Fransisco and Los Angeles aren’t the only cities to see Waymo operating in more areas this fall. The company also announced plans to start operating the robotaxi service in Austin, Texas — specifically “central and East Austin, including downtown, Rainey Street, Clarksville, Bouldin Creek, the Market District, Holly, and the Capitol.”
As Waymo continues to expand, other robotaxi companies like Cruise are also growing. Even Elon Musk has promised that Tesla owners will eventually be able to send out their own vehicles as robotaxis to earn them money in the future. I personally can’t wait to try out a robotaxi service. Bring me that robot.
