Waymo goes bigger on robotaxis

Vegas isn’t a test track anymore

Waymo just said it’s rolling out service in Las Vegas, and this isn’t some tiny demo loop with a safety driver and a hope prayer. A big chunk of the fleet will be made up of the Zeekr "Ojai" robotaxis co-developed with Waymo’s sixth-gen self-driving stack.

The service will cover nearly 24 miles across the city, from Boulder Junction to Sahara Avenue and from Spring Valley to Winchester. That’s enough ground to matter, because robotaxi businesses don’t get interesting when they can only do laps around a parking lot.

Tokyo is the real prize

The bigger headline is the 2027 Tokyo plan. Waymo says unsupervised service is coming there next year, but only if regulators bless the setup and the tech clears validation. In other words: the company is walking into Tokyo with confidence, but still needs the keys from the grown-ups.

Waymo already has partners lined up in Japan, including taxi operator Nihon Kotsu and ride-hailing app GO. Riders should eventually be able to book through both the Waymo app and GO’s app, which is the kind of distribution story investors love because it hints at scale without needing to rebuild the whole world from scratch.

Uber is in the mix too

Uber also plans to expand robotaxis on its platform in Japan and is aiming for a late-2026 launch with Hinomaru Kotsu. So yes, the robotaxi race is now officially moving from conference-stage hype to actual market turf wars.

For Alphabet, the takeaway is pretty simple: Waymo is widening its geographic moat and proving it can piece together hardware partners, local operators, and city-by-city approvals. That’s not instant revenue fireworks, but it is the kind of slow-burn execution that can turn a moonshot into a business.

Big picture: the robotaxi future is still messy, but Waymo just showed it’s willing to keep adding zip codes until the skeptics run out of excuses.