Waymo robotaxis can now be praised by the public in Miami.
The company said Thursday it will open the service, on an ongoing basis, to the nearly 10,000 local residents on the waiting list. Once accepted, riders will be able to ride the robotaxi in a 60-square-mile service area in Miami that includes neighborhoods such as the Design District, Wynwood, Brickell, and Coral Gables.
Waymo said it plans to expand to Miami International Airport, but did not provide a timeline for when it would arrive “soon.”
Waymo has been in Miami for months before its commercial launch. After mapping and then testing the autonomous vehicle on Miami’s public roads, the company removed the safety operator from its fleet in November. The driverless ones are initially open to employees.
This gradual approach is part of Waymo’s launch playbook, and it’s something we’ve been doing more often than a year ago. Waymo first opened its robotaxis to the general public in Phoenix in 2020. It expanded to San Francisco and Los Angeles and eventually open to all riders in 2024. When the company continues to expand in the metro area – pushing things to the greater Bay Area and to Silicon Valley, for example – it also opened in new markets.
Waymo is launching its robotaxi service in the spring of 2025 in partnership with Uber in Atlanta and Austinand expanded the service area in the existing market for including toll roads.
Waymo has made aggressive plans to bring robotaxi services to more than ten cities next year. The plan includes Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Nashville, London, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, DC. renamed “Ojai.”
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said during an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt last October that “by the end of 2026, you should expect us to offer 1 million trips per week.”
The expansion was not without problems. Residents in cities like San Francisco have taken videos of Waymo vehicles creating traffic jams, especially during the December power outage.
It has also received attention from federal safety regulators.
National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration Office of Defect Investigation (ODI). open preliminary investigation to the company last October about how robotaxis operates school bus stops in Atlanta. School district officials in Austin have shared videos and complaints about problems with Waymo passing school buses even when lights are on and stop signs are in place.
The company has released voluntary software to fix the problem. However, a new video, which shows Waymos illegally passing school buses, shows the problem is far from over.