Waymo has flipped the switch on public robotaxi service in Denver, San Diego and Tampa, extending the Alphabet-owned company's commercial network to 14 U.S. cities and putting its Zeekr-built Ojai minivan in the driver's seat of two of the three launches.
Three New Metros In One Move
Riders in the three cities will be invited on a rolling basis and access will ramp up gradually, according to Waymo's usual commercial playbook. The expansion pushes the company's active fleet — a mix of Jaguar I-Pace hatchbacks and the new Zeekr-made Ojai — past 4,000 vehicles nationwide. Denver and San Diego are getting Ojai-only service, while Tampa is running both models. Waymo says the pace won't slow: last month Nevada's Transportation Authority approved a permit clearing the company to deploy up to 1,000 vehicles in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, and Waymo has separately confirmed London and Munich robotaxi launches are in the works.
The Ojai Bets On A Cheaper Robotaxi
The Ojai (pronounced oh-hi) runs Waymo's sixth-generation self-driving system and is built to be significantly cheaper to manufacture, operate and maintain than the I-Pace. Only about 300 Ojai vehicles are on the road today versus thousands of Jaguars, but Waymo has signalled the Zeekr build will scale fast as it chases both growth and profitability. The commercial partnership with China's Zeekr is one of the more consequential vehicle-supply moves in the sector — a bet that a purpose-built Chinese EV platform can bring per-mile economics in line before rivals catch up.
Tesla Is Trying To Catch Up
The three-city expansion lands as Tesla is scrambling to close the gap. Tesla now charges for rides in its driverless Model Y vehicles in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, and the company is banking on the two-seat Cybercab — which NHTSA opened an audit query into hours after the Austin rollout — to accelerate its push. Waymo's lead widens the more markets it opens, and the Ojai's lower unit economics threaten to keep pressure on Cybercab margins for years.
Europe Is Next
Waymo follows a familiar template in every new metro: map and test, remove the human safety operator, invite employees and media, then open the app to paying riders. That plan is now in motion outside the U.S. too, with London and Munich in the pipeline and the company continuing to rack up partnerships alongside its own expansion — including Uber-fronted deployments in markets that competitors like Pony.ai and Verne are also chasing. Whether Waymo can convert its city lead into positive unit economics before Tesla's Cybercab scales is now the industry's central question.
Reporting based on coverage from TechCrunch and Waymo.