Waymo

Waymo LLC is an American autonomous driving technology company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. Waymo originated as Google's self-driving car project, which began in 2009 under the leadership of Sebastian Thrun, as part of Google X. In December 2016, the project was spun out as an independent company under the Waymo brand, with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and goods to reach their destinations through fully autonomous vehicle technology.

Waymo is headquartered in Mountain View, California, at Alphabet's campus, and maintains operations and testing facilities across the United States. The company is widely considered the industry leader in deployed autonomous driving, having accumulated more real-world autonomous miles than any other organization. As of June 2026, Waymo has logged over 200 million fully driverless miles.

Waymo's commercial operations are centered on Waymo One, its public robotaxi service. As of mid-2026, Waymo One operates in 10 US metropolitan areas, provides approximately 500,000 paid rides per week, and fields a fleet of approximately 3,871 autonomous vehicles. The service launched commercially in Phoenix, Arizona in 2019 and expanded to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. Waymo One uses a fully driverless model — no safety driver — for all commercial rides in operational areas.

Waymo's primary vehicle platform has been the customized Jaguar I-PACE electric SUV, converted to full Level 4 autonomy with Waymo's proprietary sensor suite encompassing lidar, cameras, and radar. In 2026, Waymo began deploying a new purpose-built robotaxi platform called the Ojai, developed in partnership with Zeekr (a Geely brand), featuring sliding passenger doors, a more compact sensor stack, and a roomier interior optimized for ride-hailing.

Waymo previously operated Waymo Via, a division focused on autonomous long-haul trucking, but in 2023 sunset that program to concentrate resources on the Waymo One passenger service. In February 2026, Waymo raised $16 billion in new funding, which valued the company at approximately $126 billion — making it one of the most valuable autonomous vehicle companies in the world.

Waymo's technology stack includes its own generation of lidar sensors (developed in-house), advanced sensor fusion, HD mapping, and sophisticated planning and prediction algorithms built up over more than 15 years of research and real-world testing.