Waymo Opens Ride-Hailing Services In Los Angeles

Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving division has confirmed the expansion and opening up of its driverless robotaxi service, known as Waymo One, to any resident in a major US city.

Waymo announced on Tuesday that “starting today, anyone in Los Angeles can take fully autonomous rides 24/7 with Waymo One – rolling through Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard, USC, and everything in between.”

Waymo had begun offering a limited commercial operation in Los Angeles in March 2024, and soon had more than 300,000 people sign up for the Waymo One waitlist.

Waymo One

Then in August Waymo cited “incredible demand” for its decision to expand its Waymo One service in certain locations in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Waymo One became available for use in the San Francisco Peninsula for the first time, and added Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma to its existing, round-the-clock public ride-hailing service in that city.

Meanwhile at the same time in Los Angeles, it expanded the Waymo One service area to include areas such as Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, Playa Vista, and parts of Hollywood, Chinatown and Westwood.

Now Waymo said it has “enjoyed a warm welcome from Angelenos since we began commercial operations in LA earlier this year, with nearly 300,000 people joining our waitlist. We’ve opened our doors to those eager riders over time, who have taken hundreds of thousands of paid trips across the city and highly rated them at 4.7 / 5 stars on average.”

It noted that riders recently surveyed in LA said that 98 percent are satisfied with its service and 96 percent find it useful.

LA expansion

“Now is an exciting time to welcome everyone in Los Angeles along for the ride,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO, Waymo.

“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving. We’re so grateful to all of our first riders in LA, and we can’t wait to serve more riders soon.”

Riders can now traverse nearly 80 sq miles of LA County, and Waymo said it intend to grow its service area to cover more of the city in the future.

Los Angeles of course is known for its heavy traffic jams, and the appeal of utilising a self-driving taxi instead of driving in heavy traffic may appeal to many residents.

Robotaxi competition

Google had begun developing self-driving technology back in 2009, and after almost two years of road testing with seven vehicles, officially revealed the project to the world in October 2010.

In 2016 Alphabet spun out the self-driving operation and created Waymo, signalling that the company was ready to forge a commercial roadmap with its autonomous car technology.

Waymo first launched its ride-hailing service in 2017 in Phoenix, and in 2020 introduced fully autonomous public rides, serving hundreds of rides weekly.

Whilst Waymo is one of the leading players in the driverless robotaxi sector – it is not alone.

GM’s Cruise is one of its closest competitors, and is teaming up with ride-hailing giant Uber to offer its autonomous robotaxi vehicles on Uber’s platform.

Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to utilise its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.

Meanwhile Tesla is seeking to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, but analysts doubt its ability to compete with Waymo, despite Elon Musk hoping to gain the needed regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.

Meanwhile another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.