Waymo Timeline

Events

• 2026-10-20 - Market Signal - Waymo plans Madrid rider service for 2027 - Electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will first conduct manual driving before validation with trained local autonomous specialists. The company is engaging national, regional and local authorities and familiarising emergency services with its technology. Local… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-10-16 - Deployment - Waymo targets first Toronto robotaxi riders in 2028 with Element fleet support - Manual driving is due to begin in the following days; the announcement is not a launch of driverless passenger service. Element will provide end-to-end fleet management, extending the companies’ existing partnership to Toronto. Facilities and hundreds of… - source: blog.waymo.com
• 2026-10-14 - Deployment - Waymo expands public access and adds San Antonio airport rides - Anyone can download the Waymo app and request a ride in the three cities. The cities’ services had already carried hundreds of thousands of riders since opening earlier in the year. San Antonio International Airport trips add a new airport option for local… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-10-08 - Market Signal - Waymo closes its first debt financing with a $5 billion term loan - PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street are lead syndicated lenders; Capital Group, Loomis Sayles and T. Rowe Price are significant lenders. Goldman Sachs served as sole lead bookrunner. The loan follows a $16 billion equity investment earlier in 2026 and the… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-10-06 - Production Milestone - Waymo ramps production and road testing of silver Ojai vehicles - Rides in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas are planned in the coming weeks, with more cities to follow. The version adds leatherette upholstery, redesigned seats, rear armrests and wireless charging. - source: waymo.com
• 2026-09-24 - Capability - Waymo updates safety analysis to 270M fully autonomous miles - Waymo reports 82% fewer injury-causing crashes than its matched human-driver benchmark across Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. It reports 95% fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes, measured regardless of fault. The analysis estimates… - source: waymo.jp
• 2026-09-18 - Market Signal - Hyundai could start October production of Waymo IONIQ 5 robotaxis - Production would take place at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia, where IONIQ 5 vehicles for Waymo are assembled. Hyundai has publicly said the first IONIQ 5 Waymo robotaxis are scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2026. The… - source: kedglobal.com
• 2026-09-17 - Market Signal - Waymo targets 2028 commercial robotaxi launch in Singapore - Waymo expects its initial Jaguar I-PACE fleet to arrive in Singapore over the coming months as local operations are established. Trained autonomous specialists are scheduled to conduct manual driving in 2027 to adapt the Waymo Driver to local roads and… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-09-15 - Partnership - Waymo partners with Allianz Partners for European robotaxi insurance - Allianz Partners will develop tailored fleet and liability coverage for autonomous vehicles. The companies will collaborate with the Allianz Center for Technology on crash analysis, safety modelling and risk evaluation. Vehicle-recovery services are an area… - source: community.waymo.com
• 2026-09-14 - Partnership - Waymo, GO and Nihon Kotsu formalize a 2027 Tokyo robotaxi launch - The service is planned to start with a small fleet and scale toward roughly 100 vehicles across key Tokyo neighbourhoods. Customers are expected to request rides through both the GO and Waymo applications. The agreement advances supervised Tokyo testing into… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-09-14 - Deployment - Waymo opens fully autonomous rides to the Las Vegas public - More than 100,000 people registered interest before public access began. The service covers a nearly 24-square-mile area spanning the Strip and surrounding neighbourhoods. Las Vegas joins Denver and San Diego as an early market using a majority fleet of Ojai… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-09-09 - Deployment - Lyft launches fully autonomous Waymo rides in Nashville - Eligible trips include Standard, Priority Pickup, Wait & Save and Extra Comfort rides that start and end in the central Nashville service area. Lyft and Waymo dynamically dispatch vehicles from one fleet across both apps, with availability planned to… - source: lyft.com
• 2026-09-01 - Deployment - Waymo opens fully autonomous rides in Denver, San Diego and Tampa - The three additions take Waymo to 14 cities offering fully autonomous trips. Tens of thousands of people in each city had joined the local interest lists before launch. The service uses Waymo newest vehicle platform and next-generation Waymo Driver, with… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-08-25 - Market Signal - Waymo selects Munich for planned German robotaxi launch - Manual high-definition mapping is scheduled to begin in the coming weeks. Autonomous testing with trained specialists behind the wheel will follow the mapping phase. Waymo is planning local fleet operations and regulatory engagement; the announcement does… - source: waymo.com
• 2026-08-20 - Capability - Waymo details custom 5nm ASIC and autonomous-compute partner stack - The custom ASIC provides more than 1,000 TOPS for front-end sensor processing and machine-learning workloads. Waymo says its onboard compute performance has increased 20-fold in eight years and processes 13 high-resolution cameras in real time. - source: waymo.com
• 2026-08-14 - Regulatory - Waymo receives California authority for wider robotaxi service area - The permitted geography could support routes from Silicon Valley to Bodega Bay and north-coast communities, as well as travel through the Napa and Alexander valleys. Waymo said it has no immediate launch dates for the newly authorised areas and will share… - source: sfchronicle.com
• 2026-08-06 - Facility Opening - Waymo leases third Washington, D.C. operations site - The newly leased site will support electric-vehicle charging and maintenance, adding to two other local facilities in Waymo's planned operating footprint. A separate 32,000-square-foot service facility is already under construction, and Waymo estimates its… - source: axios.com
• 2026-06-25 - Deployment - Waymo begins resuming freeway operations after construction-zone software remedy - Waymo began updating affected fifth-generation automated driving systems on 16 June and started resuming freeway operations on 25 June. The remedy improves construction-zone recognition, hazard prioritisation and speed reduction, alongside operational and… - source: static.nhtsa.gov
• 2026-06-15 - Partnership - Waymo selects Element for autonomous fleet services - Element will provide fleet-management and operational support. The multi-year agreement begins with Waymo operations in San Diego. Expansion to other markets remains prospective. - source: prnewswire.com
• 2026-02-02 - Funding - Waymo raises $16 billion investment round at $126 billion valuation - The financing was led by Dragoneer, DST Global and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Mubadala and other investors. Waymo reported 127 million fully autonomous miles, 20 million lifetime rides and more than 400,000 rides provided… - source: waymo.com
• 2024-10-25 - Funding - Waymo closes $5.6 billion investment round - The $5.6 billion round closed on 25 October 2024, with Alphabet leading and Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price continuing as investors. Proceeds were earmarked for serving more Waymo One riders in San… - source: waymo.com
• 2022-12-16 - Deployment - Waymo opens 24/7 rider-only airport service in Phoenix - Waymo opened fully autonomous rides between Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Downtown Phoenix to members of the public. The company described the airport route as a round-the-clock service with no human driver at the 44th Street and Washington… - source: waymo.com
• 2021-06-16 - Funding - Waymo raises $2.5 billion investment round - Participants included Alphabet, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, CPP Investments, Fidelity, Magna, Mubadala, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, T. Rowe Price, Temasek and Tiger Global. Waymo said the capital would support continued development and commercialization… - source: waymo.com
• 2020-07-30 - Funding - Waymo completes $3.2B first external round after ~$30B initial-close valuation - Reporting around the March 2020 initial close placed Waymo's valuation at about $30 billion. Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Mubadala led the initial close, with Magna, Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation and Alphabet also participating.… - source: waymo.com