Waymo Is Scaling Fast, but the Map Is Deceptive: It's Nearly All California and Texas

Waymo's commercial robotaxi rollout looks sweeping, both in reach and in ridership. In September 2024 the company — spun out of Google and still majority-owned by Alphabet — operated in just three cities: Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Today its service runs in 15 U.S. cities, with most of those launches coming in the past year. Ridership has surged too: Waymo now averages 500,000 paid rides every week.

Look closer, though, and the picture is far more concentrated. Roughly 80% of the company's approximately 4,000 robotaxis sit in just two states — California and Texas. And Texas is where the action is now: its fleet there has grown by nearly half in three weeks.

The Texas surge

By September 24, state vehicle registrations and the Texas Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Tracker showed 1,102 Waymo autonomous vehicles registered — a 49% jump in three weeks. The fleet barely moved all summer, creeping from about 600 vehicles in June to just over 700 by the end of August. Then September brought a sharp spike.

Waymo first went commercial in Austin in March 2025 through a partnership with Uber, later expanding to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

The remaining 800 or so vehicles are scattered across other states, including Arizona and Florida. Most are the familiar white Jaguar I-Pace electric SUVs, but the newcomer's share is climbing.

Betting on a Chinese-built minivan

That newcomer is a modified Zeekr RT that Waymo has branded the "Ojai." It carries Waymo's sixth-generation self-driving system, a heavy-duty interior, and Google's Gemini as an in-car assistant. Strip that away, though, and it is a minivan built by Zeekr — a brand owned by China's Geely (which also owns Volvo) — on the SEA-M platform. The base vehicles ship to the U.S. without any Chinese connected-car tech, then get outfitted with Waymo's system at the company's Arizona factory. In Texas, Ojai vehicles already make up about a third of the fleet.

The minivan is meant to cut costs and push Waymo toward profitability. For now, tariffs are eating the savings: China-built vehicles face steep import duties. The company seems willing to swallow the cost. Research firm MoffettNathanson, which tracks the imports through shipping records, estimates Waymo is on track to bring 5,100 of the vehicles into the U.S. by year's end. Beyond Texas, they will likely flow to Florida and newer markets such as Las Vegas.

Source: TechCrunch