Waymo plans to expand self-driving cars to 4 more major cities this year

Self-driving company Waymo has added four more cities where it will serve passengers: Denver, San Diego, Las Vegas and Tampa. Alphabet, Waymo’s parent company, announced the expansion on Wednesday.

Waymo’s robotaxi service is currently available in major US cities like San Francisco, San Antonio, Orlando, Phoenix and many more. Since introducing Waymo’s self-driving cars, Alphabet has relied on e-vehicles that use artificial intelligence to detect objects under different weather conditions. Its fleet is mostly The all-electric Jaguar I-Pacealthough he recently added a Rahba Ojai, a modified Zeker vehicle.

Waymo’s latest vehicle, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, will be available with a specialist behind the wheel to validate the hardware and software before the passenger-only vehicle is unleashed on the public.

Waymo stated in a Blog post The robotaxis being added in new cities will initially only be available to Alphabet employees, but will be open to other passengers soon. The self-driving company has been in the news since 2020 for introducing self-driving taxis to the public, but not always in a positive way.

In recent months, nearly 4,000 Waymos were affected by a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recall after the automated vehicle entered freeway construction zones in Phoenix, Arizona, and San Francisco. NHTSA a report It states that the cars improperly prioritized other highway hazards and failed to recognize construction zones. Additionally, in May, another recall affected Waymo after vehicles were reported Driving in flooded water Roads.

Despite this debacle, Waymo is actively preparing for launches in New York, Chicago, London and Tokyo. Waymo also faces competition from Zooxanother Amazon-owned robotaxi company, which has continued to expand its operations across cities.

A Waymo representative was not available for comment.