After recently announcing the expansion of its self-driving car routes to Los Angeles freeways,WaymoIt expects to expand its self-driving car service to more than 10 cities this year, starting with new road tests in Las Vegas and San Diego.
Unlike the self-driving ride-hailing services that Waymo has previously provided in areas such as Phoenix and San Francisco, Waymo will deploy a driver in the vehicle when it conducts tests in more cities to handle unexpected accidents during the test.
Waymo will use these tests to confirm how its self-driving system operates under different weather, regional road conditions, and other conditions in different cities. The company plans to initially deploy 10 self-driving cars in each new focus city for testing, which will also allow the self-driving system to understand the subtle differences in traffic regulations in different cities.
On the road again: As Waymo prepares for broader scale, we're embarking on our largest road trip to date, visiting 10+ cities in 2025. First up: Las Vegas and San Diego.
Read more about how our road trips help advance the Waymo Driver's AI: https://t.co/96XzLSFV8O pic.twitter.com/UDCWOCkVOk
- Waymo (@Waymo) January 29, 2025
Initial testing will be conducted in Las Vegas' famous hotel and casino areas to confirm whether the self-driving car can operate smoothly in congested and chaotic traffic. San Diego will also be the initial testing location, and the setting will be to see whether normal self-driving operation can be maintained without a large amount of different driving reference data.
In addition to Las Vegas and San Diego, Waymo plans to test in cities like Miami, Austin, and Atlanta, though the list of cities it plans to enter has not yet been confirmed. However, given Waymo's previous cold-weather testing in upstate New York and Michigan, it's possible that the cities it plans to enter will also include those with cold-weather characteristics.
On the other hand, Waymo announced its entry intoJapan Tokyo, which means that we may choose to test self-driving situations under different road conditions in the United States in the future.
Freeways are an intrinsic part of the LA experience. To better serve our expansive 79-square-mile service area, we're beginning to provide our employees with access to fully autonomous rides on LA freeways—a key step toward expanding this capability to all riders. pic.twitter.com/oWqVQ1hlJz
- Waymo (@Waymo) January 28, 2025
