With Tesla horning in on its Texas territory, robotaxi outfit Waymo has decided to expand to a new city in the Lone Star state: Dallas.
Waymo announced on Monday that it will launch the venture next year in partnership with car rental outfit Avis Budget Group. Avis will manage all Waymo vehicles in Dallas, with the agency handling “end to end fleet management services, including infrastructure, vehicle readiness, maintenance and general depot operations.”
Waymo said that using Avis as a fleet management partner will help it scale more quickly. However, the Google spinoff declined to provide specifics on where else it and Avis may expand.
A Waymo spokesperson pointed out to us that Avis isn’t the company’s only operations partner. Its fleets in Phoenix and Miami are managed in partnership with Moove, while Uber handles its fleets in Austin and Atlanta.
“We’re in constant dialogue with partners spanning infrastructure, fleet management, automotive manufacturing, community advocacy, network operators, and more,” the spokesperson told us in an email. “We’ll continue to grow the autonomous vehicle partnership ecosystem we’ve built.”
Waymo declined to tell The Register which specific areas of Dallas would get service, though the spokesperson did say that the downtown area and “a large swath” of nearby areas were currently being tested.
Waymo’s expansion into Dallas and its Avis partnership aren’t the only plans it shared in yesterday’s statement, either. The company said it will begin service in Miami, Florida, and Washington, DC in 2026. Moove will serve as Waymo’s Miami fleet operator, while the company will be managing its own operations in DC, like it does in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Waymo maintains the robotaxi lead with more territory to conquer
There are a few other players in the robotaxi market right now, but none can really hold a candle to Waymo, despite its well-established faults and the widespread hate the vehicles get.
Tesla, which launched a very small-scale robotaxi service in Austin last month, has been shown to perform demonstrably worse than Waymo. The company’s robotaxi service is only operating in a small portion of Austin right now. While Tesla is reportedly going to begin offering service in San Francisco as soon as this coming weekend, the outfit has yet to get a driverless testing permit in the state, so it will have to have safety drivers behind the wheel for all trips.
And then there’s Amazon’s driverless taxi service Zoox, which while still working to roll out its first commercial service in Las Vegas, is already under federal investigation for a pair of motorcycle collisions. It’s not growing fast enough to keep up with Waymo by any stretch, as the latter company already operates in six cities and is actively planning expansion into at least three more.
That said, there is room for a larger robotaxi industry in the US, as a number of states have passed laws allowing for their operation. At least 21 states, including Texas, Florida, and California, and Washington, DC, have laws on the books allowing for some form of autonomous vehicle deployment. Aside from Waymo and Tesla’s existing operations, however, you’ll be hard pressed to find a place to hail a robotaxi.
But are robotaxis even safe? Waymo says its data proves the ones using its AI are, but self-driving cars are still notoriously easy to fool. Putting safety aside, with this pace of growth, they’ll be coming to a city near you soon enough. ®