Waymo Expands Austin Autonomous Service to 90 Square Miles

Alphabet's Waymo announced it has significantly expanded its autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin, growing its coverage from 37 to 90 square miles and adding new neighborhoods and destinations to its network.

The new service area includes Crestview, Windsor Park, Sunset Valley, and Franklin Park, as well as The Domain and McKinney Falls State Park. The expansion also enables service to and from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

"Just months after serving our first Austin riders with Uber, we’re excited to offer our 24/7 service to more of the city," said Shweta Shrivastava, Waymo’s senior director of product management. "The service with our partners at Uber is healthy, and we are ready for more Austinites to experience the magic of fully autonomous driving."

Waymo, the current leader in the autonomous vehicle field, is growing rapidly but other companies are looking to catch up. Chief among them: Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc., which recently rolled out its robotaxi service to a select few influencers, and Amazon’s Zoox, which recently announced a new Bay Area production facility to mass produce its autonomous vehicles.

Waymo launched its fully autonomous service in Austin earlier this year in partnership with Uber. The company says more than 100 Waymo vehicles are operating in the city, with plans to scale to hundreds over time. According to the company, customer satisfaction remains high, with Austin riders rating their Waymo trips 4.9 out of 5 on average.

Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility and delivery, called the expansion "a major step toward a future of transportation that is increasingly electric and autonomous."

Waymo’s move comes shortly after Tesla expanded its own autonomous ride service in Austin. Tesla recently more than doubled the size of its robotaxi operating area, from 20 to 42 square miles. That service, while still in early stages, adds to the growing competition among autonomous vehicle providers in Austin — one of the few U.S. cities with multiple players in the space.

Waymo also announced it has reached 100 million fully autonomous miles driven without a human behind the wheel, doubling its mileage in just six months. The company now operates in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and parts of Silicon Valley. The company plans to expand to markets like Atlanta and Miami in the future.