Waymo, the self-driving company owned by Alphabet, is soon hitting the highways. Operating on highways is just one part of a rapid expansion plan that includes moving to six U.S. cities, entering international markets and launching service at airports—all while maintaining a focus on safety above all else.
“It is imperative that we scale,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, while speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 today (Oct. 27). Mawakana said Waymo plans to increase its weekly autonomous rides from the “hundreds of thousands” to one million by the end of 2026. The company already operates in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Austin, but hopes to more than double its footprint by expanding into Miami, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Nashville and Washington, D.C.
Waymo will begin operations in Miami early next year, Mawakana said. Timelines for other cities will depend on local regulatory readiness. In some markets, Waymo will “just show up and they’ll launch,” she said. Others, like Washington D.C., will require more groundwork before fully autonomous rides can roll out.
The company is also setting its sights overseas. Last year, Waymo announced plans to test operations in Tokyo through partnerships with taxi firms GO and Nihon Kotsu, using human-driven cars to train its technology in the city’s dense urban environment. London is next: the company revealed earlier this month that it will begin offering fully autonomous rides there in 2026.
Waymo’s expansion isn’t limited to geography—it’s moving onto new types of roads. Until now, its vehicles have been restricted mostly to surface streets. But the company has begun highway testing through employee trials in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco. “We think it’s really important to conceptualize the ways in which that experience is different than surface streets,” said Mawakana, adding that highway rides will open to the public by year’s end.
The move to highways will also make it easier for Waymo to facilitate airport trips—a category that the company is “super focused” on, according to Mawakana. Waymo has already secured permits to operate at airports in San Francisco and San Jose and hopes to add more as its vehicles become a more common sight on highways.
Unlocking more roads raises the stakes for safety. Waymo, which publishes its safety data online, reports that its vehicles are involved in 91 percent fewer high-severity crashes, 78 percent fewer airbag-deployment crashes and 80 percent fewer injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers. If that record began to slip, Mawakana said the company would “absolutely” slow its expansion. “That’s what it means to be a safety-first culture.”
Part of that culture, she added, is being transparent about the limits of the technology. “I’m not telling you 100 percent across the board, and that’s really important,” said Mawakana. “We have to be in this open and honest dialogue about the fact that we know it’s not perfection.”
