Waymo continues to ramp up its robo-taxis with its Miami service now open to the public

The Waymo robot can now be welcomed by the public in Miami.

The company said Thursday that it will initially open the service, on a rolling basis, to the approximately 10,000 local residents on its waiting list. Once accepted, riders will be able to hail a robo-taxi within a 60-square-mile service area in Miami that covers neighborhoods such as the Design District, Wynwood, Brickell, and Coral Gables.

Waymo said it plans to eventually expand to Miami International Airport, but did not provide a timeline beyond that, with that coming “soon.”

Waymo had a presence in Miami for several months in the lead-up to the commercial launch. After mapping its self-driving vehicles and then testing them on public roads in Miami, the company removed safety operators from the fleet in November. The driverless service was initially open to employees.

This phased approach is part of Waymo’s launch playbook, which is much more implemented than it was a year ago. Waymo first opened its robo-taxis to the general public in Phoenix in 2020. It expanded to San Francisco and Los Angeles and eventually opened them to all riders in 2024. As the company continues to expand in those metro areas — pushing into the greater Bay Area and into Silicon Valley, for example — it has also opened up new markets.

Waymo opened its robotaxi service in spring 2025 in partnership with Uber in Atlanta and Austin, expanding its service area in existing markets to include highways.

Waymo has laid out a bold plan to bring its robotics service to nearly a dozen more cities over the next year. These plans include Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Nashville, London, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. The company has already begun testing in some of those cities using a mix of all-electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles and newer Zeekr RT trucks that have been rebranded as “Ojai.”

“By the end of 2026, you should expect us to be offering 1 million rides per week,” Waymo co-CEO Tekdra Mawakana said during an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt last October.

The expansion was not without problems. Residents of cities like San Francisco captured video of Waymo vehicles causing traffic jams, particularly during widespread power outages in December.

It has also received attention from federal safety regulators.

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened a preliminary investigation into the company last October into how its robotaxi worked around a parked school bus in Atlanta. Austin school district officials shared a video and complaints about the same issue of Waymo passing in front of school buses even when the lights are on and a stop sign is posted.

The company has issued a voluntary software recall to fix this issue. However, new videos, showing Waymos illegally passing school buses, suggest the issue has not been resolved.