Autonomous car technology company
Waymo LLC Company type Subsidiary Industry Autonomous cars Predecessor Google Self-Driving Car Project Founded
2004; 21 years ago (2004 ) (as Stanford Self-Driving Car Team)
January 17, 2009; 16 years ago (January 17, 2009 ) (as the Google Self-Driving Car Project)
December 13, 2016; 8 years ago (2016-12-13 ) (as Waymo)
Founder Headquarters , United States
Area served
Phoenix, Arizona , United States
San Francisco and Daly City , California, United States
Silicon Valley, California , United States[ 1]
Los Angeles, California , United States
Austin, Texas , United States
Miami, Florida , United States (private testing)
Tokyo , Japan (private testing)[ 2]
Key people
Number of employees
2,500 (2023) Parent Website waymo .com
Waymo Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid undergoing testing in the San Francisco Bay Area (2017)
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 .
The company traces its origins to the Stanford Racing Team, which competed in the 2005 and 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenges .[ 3] Google's development of self-driving technology began in January 2009,[ 4] [ 5] led by Sebastian Thrun , the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), and Anthony Levandowski , founder of 510 Systems and Anthony's Robots.[ 6] [ 7] After almost two years of road testing, the project was revealed in October 2010.[ 8] [ 9] [ 10]
In fall 2015, Google provided "the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads".[ 11] In December 2016, the project was renamed Waymo and spun out of Google as part of Alphabet.[ 12] In October 2020, Waymo became the first company to offer service to the public without safety drivers in the vehicle.[ 13] [ 14] [ 15] [ 16] Waymo, as of 2025, operates commercial robotaxi services in Phoenix (Arizona), San Francisco (California), Silicon Valley (California)[ 17] and Los Angeles (California)[ 18] with new services planned in Austin, Texas , Miami, Florida and Tokyo , Japan .[ 19] [ 20] As of March 2025[update] , it offers over 200,000 paid rides per week, totalling over 1 million miles weekly.[ 17] [ 21]
Waymo is run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov .[ 22] The company raised US$5.5 billion in multiple outside funding rounds[ 23] by 2022 and raised $5.6 billion funding in 2024.[ 24] Waymo has or had partnerships with multiple vehicle manufacturers, including Stellantis ,[ 25] Mercedes-Benz Group AG ,[ 26] Jaguar Land Rover ,[ 27] and Volvo .[ 28]
^ Love, Julia (March 11, 2025). "Alphabet's Waymo to Offer Self-Driving Rides in Silicon Valley" . Bloomberg . Retrieved March 13, 2025 .
^ Kolodny, Jennifer Elias,Lora (December 17, 2024). "Waymo to begin testing in Tokyo, its first international destination" . CNBC . {{cite web }}
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^ "Waymo launches its first commercial self-driving car service" . Engadget . Retrieved December 5, 2018 .
^ White, Joseph (October 8, 2020). "Waymo opens driverless robo-taxi service to the public in Phoenix" . Reuters . Retrieved October 20, 2020 .
^ "Waymo Relaunches Driverless Ride Sharing" . All About Arizona News . October 12, 2020. Retrieved October 18, 2020 .
^ Hawkins, Andrew J. (December 9, 2019). "Waymo's driverless car: ghost-riding in the back seat of a robot taxi" . The Verge .
^ a b Love, Julia (March 17, 2025). "Alphabet's Waymo to Offer Self-Driving Rides in Silicon Valley" . Bloomberg . Retrieved March 13, 2025 .
^ Knoll, Corina (March 20, 2024). "When Nobody Is Behind the Wheel in Car-Obsessed Los Angeles" . The New York Times . Retrieved July 23, 2024 .
^ "Autonomous Ride-Hailing in Austin, Texas" . Waymo . Retrieved October 27, 2023 .
^ "Waymo to Begin Autonomous Vehicle Testing in Tokyo in 2025" . beijingtimes.com . Retrieved December 18, 2024 .
^ Korosec, Kirsten (February 27, 2025). "Waymo has doubled its weekly robotaxi rides in less than a year" . TechCrunch . Retrieved March 14, 2025 .
^ "Waymo CEO John Krafcik steps aside as co-CEO's take over" . CNBC. April 2, 2021. Retrieved April 2, 2021 .
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^ Kolodny, Lora (October 25, 2024). "Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo closes $5.6 billion funding round as robotaxi race heats up in the U.S." CNBC . Retrieved October 30, 2024 .
^ Andrew J. Hawkins (November 7, 2017). "Waymo is first to put fully self-driving cars on US roads without a safety driver" . The Verge . Retrieved June 13, 2018 .
^ Daimler Trucks partners with Waymo to build self-driving semi trucks , TechCrunch, October 27, 2020
^ Bergen, Mark; Naughton, Keith (April 2, 2018). "Waymo isn't going to slow down now" . Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved June 12, 2018 .
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