Waymo
Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, is an American autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Waymo operates commercial robotaxi services available to the public in Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin., it operates over 450,000 rides per week.
The company traces its origins to the Stanford Racing Team, which competed in the 2005 and 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Grand Challenges. Google's development of self-driving technology began in January 2009. After almost two years of road testing, the project was revealed in October 2010. In December 2016, the project was renamed Waymo and spun out of Google as part of Alphabet. In October 2020, Waymo became the first company to offer service to the public without safety drivers in the vehicle.
Waymo is run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov. The company raised US$5.5 billion in multiple outside funding rounds by 2022 and raised $5.6 billion funding in 2024.
Waymo has been involved in numerous controversial incidents such as illegally passing school buses repeatedly, speeding down a residential street hitting parked cars and an incident where a Waymo fully autonomous vehicle struck a child. National Transportation Safety Board and NHTSA have opened an investigation into Waymo in January 2026 which include investigation into behaviors around schools and post-incident handling.
History
Ground work
Google's development of self-driving technology began on January 17, 2009, at Google X lab, run by co-founder Sergey Brin. The project was launched at Google by Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Anthony Levandowski, founder of 510 Systems and Anthony's Robots.The initial software code and artificial intelligence design of the effort started before the team worked at Google, when Thrun and 15 engineers, including Dmitri Dolgov, Mike Montemerlo, Hendrik Dahlkamp, Sven Strohband, and David Stavens, built Stanley and Junior, Stanford's entries in the 2005 and 2007 DARPA Challenges. Later, aspects of this technology were used in a digital mapping project for SAIL called VuTool. In 2007, Google acqui-hired the entire VuTool team to help advance Google's Street View technology.
As part of Street View development, 100 Toyota Priuses were outfitted with Topcon digital mapping hardware developed by 510 Systems.
In 2008, the Street View team launched project Ground Truth, to create accurate road maps by extracting data from satellites and street views.
Pribot
In February 2008, a Discovery Channel producer for the documentary series Prototype This! phoned Levandowski. The producer requested to borrow Levandowski's Ghost Rider, the autonomous two-wheeled motorcycle Levandowski's Berkeley team had built for the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge that Levandowski had later donated to the Smithsonian. Since the motorcycle was not available, Levandowski offered to retrofit a Toyota Prius as a self-driving pizza delivery car for the show.As a Google employee, Levandowski asked Larry Page and Thrun whether Google was interested in participating in the show. Both declined, citing liability issues. However, they authorized Levandowski to move forward with the project, as long as it was not associated with Google. Within weeks Levandowski founded Anthony's Robots to do so. He retrofitted the car with light detection and ranging technology, sensors, and cameras. The Stanford team behind the Stanley car provided its code base to the project. The ensuing episode depicting Pribot delivering pizza across the San Francisco Bay Bridge under police escort aired in December 2008.
The project success led Google to greenlight Google's self-driving car program in January 2009. In 2011, Google acquired 510 Systems, and Anthony's Robots for an estimated US$20 million. Levandowski's vehicle and hardware, and Stanford's AI technology and software, became the nucleus of the project.
Project Chauffeur
After almost two years of road testing with seven vehicles, the New York Times revealed the existence of Google's project on October 9, 2010. Google announced its initiative later the same day.Starting in 2010, lawmakers in various states expressed concerns over how to regulate autonomous vehicles. A related Nevada law went into effect on March 1, 2012. Google had been lobbying for such laws. A modified Prius was licensed by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles in May 2012. The car was "driven" by Chris Urmson with Levandowski in the passenger seat. This was the first US license for a self-driven car.
In January 2014 Google was granted a patent for a transportation service funded by advertising that included autonomous vehicles as a transport method. In late May, Google revealed an autonomous prototype, which had no steering wheel, gas pedal, or brake pedal. In December, Google unveiled a Firefly prototype that was planned to be tested on San Francisco Bay Area roads beginning in early 2015. In 2015, Levandowski left the project. In August 2015, Google hired former Hyundai Motor executive, John Krafcik, as CEO. In fall 2015, Google for the first time to non-employees provided a ride in a fully autonomous vehicle in Austin, Texas. The passenger was a blind man. It was the first entirely autonomous trip on a public road. It was not accompanied by a test driver or police escort. The car had no steering wheel or floor pedals. By the end of 2015, Project Chauffeur had covered more than a million miles.
Google spent $1.1 billion on the project between 2009 and 2015. For comparison, the acquisition of Cruise Automation by General Motors in March 2016 was for $500 million, and Uber's acquisition of Otto in August 2016 was for $680 million.
Waymo
In May 2016, Google and Stellantis announced an order of 100 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans to test the self-driving technology. In December 2016, the project changed its name to Waymo and spun out of Google as part of Alphabet. The name was derived from "a new way forward in mobility". In May 2016, the company opened a technology center in Novi, Michigan.In 2017, Waymo sued Uber for allegedly stealing trade secrets. Waymo began testing minivans without a safety driver on public roads in Chandler, Arizona, in October 2017. In 2017, Waymo unveiled new sensors and chips that are less expensive to manufacture, cameras that improve visibility, and wipers to clear the lidar system. At the beginning of the self-driving car program, they used a $75,000 lidar system from Velodyne. In 2017, the cost decreased approximately 90 percent, as Waymo converted to in-house built lidar. Waymo has applied its technology to various cars including the Prius, Audi TT, Chrysler Pacifica, and Lexus RX450h. Waymo partners with Lyft on pilot projects and product development.
Waymo started testing in Phoenix without safety drivers in November 2017.
In March 2018, Jaguar Land Rover announced that Waymo had ordered up to 20,000 of its I-Pace electric SUVs at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion. In late May 2018, Alphabet announced plans to add up to 62,000 Pacifica Hybrid minivans to the fleet. Also in May 2018, Waymo established Huimo Business Consulting subsidiary in Shanghai.
In October 2018, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a permit for Waymo to operate cars without safety drivers. Waymo was the first company to receive a permit for day and night testing on public roads and highways. Waymo announced that its service would include Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, and Palo Alto. In July 2019, Waymo received permission to transport passengers.
In December 2018, Waymo launched Waymo One in Phoenix, transporting passengers. The service used safety drivers to monitor some rides, with others provided in select areas without them. In November 2019, Waymo One became the first autonomous service worldwide to operate without safety drivers. Waymo One launched in San Francisco, beginning with a "trusted tester" rollout. In March 2022, Waymo began offering rides for Waymo staff in San Francisco without a safety driver.
In April 2019, Waymo announced plans for vehicle assembly in Detroit at the former American Axle & Manufacturing plant, bringing between 100 and 400 jobs to the area. Waymo used vehicle assembler Magna to turn Jaguar I-PACE electric SUVs and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans into Waymo Level 4 autonomous vehicles. Waymo subsequently reverted to retrofitting existing models rather than a custom design.
In March 2020, Waymo Via was launched after the company's announcement that it had raised $2.25 billion from investors. In May 2020, Waymo raised an additional $750 million. In July 2020, the company announced an exclusive partnership with auto manufacturer Volvo to integrate Waymo technology.
In April 2021, Krafcik was replaced by two co-CEOs: Waymo's COO Tekedra Mawakana and CTO Dmitri Dolgov. Waymo raised $2.5 billion in another funding round in June 2021, with total funding of $5.5 billion. Waymo launched a consumer testing program in San Francisco in August 2021.
In May 2022, Waymo started a pilot program seeking riders in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. In May 2022, Waymo announced that it would expand the program to more areas of Phoenix. In 2023, coverage of the Waymo One area was increased by, expanding to include downtown Mesa, uptown Phoenix, and South Mountain Village.
In June 2022, Waymo announced a partnership with Uber, under which Waymo will integrate its autonomous technology into Uber's freight truck service. Plans to expand the program to Los Angeles were announced in late 2022. On December 13, 2022, Waymo applied for the final permit necessary to operate fully autonomous taxis, without a backup driver present, within the state of California.
In January 2023, The Information reported that Waymo staff were among those affected by Google's layoffs of around 12,000 workers. TechCrunch reported that Waymo was set to kill its trucking program.
In July 2024, Waymo began testing its sixth-generation robotaxis which are based on electric vehicles by Chinese automobile company Zeekr, developed in a partnership first announced in 2021. They were anticipated to reduce costs, at a time when Waymo was operating at a loss.
In October 2024, Waymo closed a $5.6 billion funding round led by Alphabet, aimed at expanding its robotaxi services, bringing its total capital to over $11 billion. Around that time, the New York Times described Waymo as being "far ahead of the competition", in particular after Cruise had to suspend its operations after an accident in 2023.
Also in November 2025, the permit area in Northern California was expanded to include Santa Rosa and Sacramento. The Southern California permit area was expanded to stretch from the Mexican border to Ventura County. These new permit areas were approved by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The permit area of the DMV is larger than the operating area. The operating area is slated to get expanded to cover San Diego in mid-2026.