Waymo’s Coverage Area Is Growing and Will Soon Be Larger Than Rhode Island

For people living in certain cities with Waymo service, their travel options are about to get a lot wider.

The robotaxi company, owned by Alphabet, announced this week that it is expanding its coverage area in Miami and will soon grow its footprint in Austin, Atlanta, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

In total, Waymo says it will cover more than 1,400 square miles across 11 cities in the coming weeks. The company is bragging that its coverage area will be larger than the entire state of Rhode Island, which is roughly 1,200 square miles.

Waymo says the expansions will arrive just in time for the FIFA World Cup. Six of the cities in which it operates will serve as hosts for the global soccer tournament. These cities include Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix.

Waymo also currently operates in Orlando, San Antonio, and Nashville. Meanwhile, the company has already announced plans to move into several more markets, like Portland and Chicago.

The news comes amid broader expansion plans from Waymo. Earlier this year, the company said it had started letting employees and guests take trips in vehicles powered by its sixth-generation autonomous driving system. The most advanced Waymo Driver system is now running in the company’s new Ojai robotaxis, which are built on base vehicles supplied by Chinese automaker Geely.

Waymo says it plans to scale production at its Phoenix-area factory with the latest driving system to tens of thousands of vehicles per year.

Surprisingly, the robotaxi leader’s future in one of America’s biggest cities remains unclear. The New York City Department of Transportation confirmed last month that permits issued by the city and the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, which allowed Waymo to test its vehicles, had expired.

Gov. Kathy Hochul also recently rolled back plans to allow Waymo to test its vehicles in several upstate cities after the proposal failed to gain support from lawmakers.

Still, as Waymo continues to expand, not everything has gone smoothly. Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into a January incident in which a Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school.

And just this week, Waymo also recalled nearly 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix a software issue that could allow vehicles to drive onto flooded roads.