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Waymo has opened its robotaxi service to everyone in Los Angeles, ending a waiting list that had grown to 300,000 people.
The Alphabet-backed company said that starting Tuesday, anyone can download the Waymo One app to hail a ride in its service area, which is now about 80 square miles in Los Angeles County.
Waymo has had a presence in Los Angeles since 2019, periodically coming to map neighborhoods, including Downtown, Miracle Mile, Koreatown, Santa Monica, Westwood, and West Hollywood. In 2022, the company announced that Los Angeles would be one of its next business markets, after Phoenix and San Francisco.
However, Waymo couldn’t flip this business switch right away. In August 2023, the company obtained the final permits required by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to operate commercial service in San Francisco. In March 2024, Waymo received approval from the CPUC to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Los Angeles as well as expand territory in the Bay Area that includes the San Francisco Peninsula and San Francisco freeways. Waymo removed its wait list for San Francisco riders in June.
This latest expansion comes just one week after Waymo announced it had raised $5.6 billion in a Series C funding round, led by parent company Alphabet. Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, Fidelity, Tiger Global, Perry Creek, and T.J. Rowe Price to the round. Waymo previously declined to say how much each had invested.
This investment boosts Waymo’s total value to more than $45 billion. According to Bloomberg News. Alphabet had previously announced in July that it had pledged another $5 billion to Waymo without providing further details about the “multi-year” commitment.
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