Waymo to Test Autonomous Vehicles in 10 New Cities in 2025

Autonomous vehicle firm Waymo reportedly plans to test its vehicles — with a driver behind the wheel — in 10 new cities in 2025.

These tests, which the company dubs “road trips,” allow Waymo to see how its self-driving vehicles adapt to the traffic patterns, road design, weather conditions and other factors in different cities, The Verge reported Wednesday (Jan. 29).

“So what we’re looking for is places that are going to challenge our system and look very, very different,” Nick Rose, product manager for Waymo’s expansion efforts, said in the report.

The company disclosed two of the 10 cities in which it will perform these tests this year: Las Vegas and San Diego, according to the report.

Last year, Waymo sent vehicles to Truckee, California; upstate New York; and Michigan, the report said.

It has also had its vehicles drive tens of millions of miles in its three core markets: San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles, per the report.

In this year’s tests, Waymo will send fewer than 10 vehicles to each city, will operate them only in busy commercial districts and will drive them enough miles to “make these trips useful,” the report said.

“Waymo is embarking on its largest road trip yet,” the company wrote in a Wednesday post on LinkedIn. “We’ll be visiting 10+ cities in 2025 to gather valuable experience and advance our autonomous driving technology.”

“We’re hitting the road to gather experience and improve the Waymo Driver’s AI,” Waymo wrote in a Wednesday post on Instagram. “First stops: Las Vegas and San Diego!”

Waymo said in October that it closed an oversubscribed investment round of $5.6 billion that was led by Google parent company Alphabet. The company said it would use the new funding to welcome more riders in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco, and to continue advancing its autonomous driving system, Waymo Driver.

At that time, the company was providing 100,000 paid weekly trips, a figure that was up tenfold from the previous year.

Alphabet said in July that it was investing an additional $5 billion in Waymo, which originally took to the road as Google’s own self-driving car project.