Waymo Secures $16B to Expand Autonomous Ride-Hailing into New Markets

News

Published by Stephen Oluwadara at February 3, 2026

How Waymo is Expanding Across Major Cities Globally

Waymo currently operates fully autonomous ride-hailing services in several U.S. cities, including Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and Austin. Riders in those markets can book trips without a human driver present in the vehicle. The company completes hundreds of thousands of paid rides weekly.

Waymo’s growth has been undeniable. The company has tripled its ride volume to 15 million in 2025, with over 400,000 weekly trips across six major US cities. Its fleet of over 2,500 robotaxis is set to expand further, thanks to the $16 billion funding injection. This will support fleet expansion, vehicle procurement, high-performance computing, mapping, simulation, and safety assurance for new markets.

The funds will also fuel Waymo’s international expansion into cities like London and Tokyo, where adapting to local traffic patterns, road rules, and regulatory frameworks will be crucial. This marks a significant shift from pilot projects to scalable, commercial mobility.

The former Google self-driving project began by testing its autonomous vehicle tech on public roads in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and by providing occasional public or media demos.

In 2016, it expanded and began testing in Phoenix, where it eventually removed its human safety driver from the vehicles. Phoenix became Waymo’s first robotaxi market, in which the public could hail driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans.

The company accelerated in 2023 after getting the green light in California, launching services in San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley. The company launched in Austin and Atlanta in 2025 through a partnership with Uber. It kicked off the year by expanding to Miami.

The geographic expansion has resulted in 400,000 rides per week across six major U.S. metropolitan areas. The company said that in 2025 alone, it more than tripled its annual volume to 15 million rides, bringing its lifetime rides to 20 million to date.

Tekedra N. Mawakana, Co-CEO at Waymo, said on her LinkedIn, “We’ve served more than 20 million trips, with more than 15 million rides alone in 2025. We are no longer proving a concept; we are scaling a commercial reality that people rely on every day. While the growth is exciting, our focus on improving road safety remains unchanged: we’ve achieved a 90% reduction in serious injury crashes across 127 million fully autonomous miles.”

The Future of Autonomous Cars

The funding comes as autonomous vehicle operators face increased oversight from regulators and local governments. Federal and state agencies have expanded monitoring of autonomous systems following safety incidents involving driverless vehicles. The focus is on vehicle behavior, collision response, and interactions with pedestrians and emergency responders.

However, Waymo’s autonomous system has driven over 127 million miles and reduced serious injury crashes compared to human-driven vehicles. Regulators continue to evaluate autonomous systems as deployments expand.

Industry analysts note that autonomous ride-hailing has moved beyond pilot programs in a small number of cities. Although large-scale deployment remains constrained by fleet costs, regulatory approval processes, and the challenge of maintaining consistent performance across varied driving conditions.

Waymo began as a self-driving research project within Google in 2009 before becoming a standalone company under Alphabet in 2016, which remains its majority owner. Commercial ride-hailing has since become its primary business focus.