Waymo Zoox Expand US Robotaxi Services

Two major players in the autonomous vehicle industry, Amazon's Zoox and Alphabet's Waymo, are significantly expanding their driverless ride-hailing services across the United States, intensifying competition in the rapidly growing sector. Waymo announced on September 1, 2026, that it has begun offering paid public robotaxi rides in three new cities: Denver, San Diego, and Tampa, Florida. This expansion brings Waymo's total operational footprint to 14 U.S. cities. The company is gradually opening access to riders who have already signed up through the Waymo app in these new markets, with plans to scale up its fleet from dozens to hundreds of vehicles in each location. Waymo's fleet now exceeds 4,000 vehicles nationwide, and the company reports completing more than 500,000 paid rides weekly, aiming to surpass one million weekly rides by the end of 2026. Concurrently, Amazon's Zoox is preparing to launch testing operations in Houston and San Diego. This move will increase Zoox's U.S. presence to 12 locations. Zoox plans to initially deploy retrofitted test vehicles for manual mapping and data collection in these new cities before introducing its purpose-built, driverless robotaxis.