Waymo announces Chicago and Charlotte expansion as driverless rollout accelerates
The company is currently operating in 10 US cities.
Waymo’s expansion is speeding up.
Today the Alphabet subsidiary announced plans to expand its driverless car service to Chicago and Charlotte. As with each new city, it’s starting with manual testing and mapping before progressing to driverless operations and, eventually, a public ride-hailing service. Waymo didn’t provide a timeline for Chicago or Charlotte, but its expansion pace has clearly accelerated.
Waymo first launched fully driverless service to the public in Phoenix in 2020 and expanded slowly in the years that followed. San Francisco became its second public market in 2024, and Atlanta its fifth last summer. Already this year, the company has rolled out service in five additional markets — including Miami and, as of yesterday, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Orlando — though those last four are opening on a “rolling basis.”
The service is currently live in 10 markets, with another 20 on the way, including an expected 2026 launch in London.
The company’s biggest competitor, Tesla, is currently operating a smattering of vehicles in its Austin fleet without a safety monitor onboard. The company has a larger service in which a driver employs supervised Full Self-Driving tech in the Bay Area. Tesla said last month that it plans to expand that service to a half dozen other US cities in the first half of 2026.
