Waymo

Waymo, pronounced WAY-moh, is an American autonomous driving company based in Mountain View, California, and a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. As of June 2026, Waymo operates public commercial robotaxi services across 10 US metropolitan areas, with a fleet of 3,871 robotaxis providing 500,000 paid rides per week. The company has logged 200 million fully autonomous miles, making it a leader in self-driving technology.

The company's roots go back to the Stanford Racing Team, which competed in the DARPA Grand Challenges in 2005 and 2007. Google began developing self-driving technology in January 2009, revealing the project in October 2010. In December 2016, the project was renamed Waymo and spun out as a separate entity under Alphabet. In October 2020, Waymo became the first company to offer public rides without safety drivers.

Waymo is led by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov since April 2021. The company raised $11 billion in outside funding by 2024, and in February 2026, a $16 billion round valued Waymo at $126 billion. However, safety concerns persist. In January 2026, the National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened investigations into Waymo's robotaxis for incidents including illegally passing stopped school buses and a crash where a robotaxi hit a child who ran from behind a parked SUV in a school zone.[edit]