Safe autonomous driving in 2026 and beyond

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Waymo is now in 15 metro areas with Las Vegas recently announced.

Waymo is also on freeways in 5 markets.

  1. Phoenix, Arizona - October 2020
  2. San Francisco, California - August 2023
  3. Los Angeles, California - March 2024
  4. Austin, Texas - March 2025
  5. Atlanta, Georgia - June 2025
  6. Miami, Florida - Late 2025
  7. Dallas, Texas - February 2026
  8. Houston, Texas - February 2026
  9. San Antonio, Texas - February 2026
  10. Orlando, Florida - February 2026
  11. Nashville, Tennessee - Mid 2026
  12. Denver, Colorado - September 2026
  13. San Diego, California - September 2026
  14. Tampa, Florida - September 2026
  15. Las Vegas, Nevada - September 2026

Waymo’s driverless robotaxis are now offering customers rides on Austin-area freeways.
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Austin joins Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami on the growing list of cities in which Waymo vehicles travel on highways.
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A Waymo representative said the service is active on all freeways in the company’s Austin service area, including Interstate 35, MoPac Expressway, U.S. 183 and U.S. 290.

This thread is for new data and time-specific forecasts on AI driving advancements on public roadways, including financials.

This thread is not for debating why Tesla hasn’t delivered on autonomy after a decade.

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Waymo recently released an updated safety report.

Through June 2026, Waymo has driven 271.3M rider-only miles without a human driver

  • 95% fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes (a rate of 0.01 incidents per million miles compared to 0.21 for humans).
  • 82% fewer injury-causing crashes overall, translating to an estimated 841 fewer injuries on the road.
  • 82% fewer airbag-deployment crashes.
  • 94% overall crash reduction according to Waymo’s macro safety impact metric.
  • 93% fewer pedestrian injury crashes
  • 86% fewer cyclist injury crashes
  • 82% fewer motorcyclist injury crashes

”By making detailed information about crashes and miles driven publicly accessible, Waymo’s transparency will not only support independent research but foster public trust. We hope other companies developing and deploying automated driving systems follow suit.”
David Zuby, Chief Research Officer, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Waymo safety report

When other companies publish similar safety statistics, we can then compare the safety of AI drivers from different providers and make informed consumer choices.

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A conversation with Google AI
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All of these cities tend to have nice weather. I’m curious. Does Waymo have internal rules for getting robotaxis off the road if the weather turns bad?
Wendy

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Here’s an article on it:
Waymo and weather

Waymo and other companies do start in locations with better driving weather, such as Phoenix and other southern cities.

Waymo does now have commercial service in Denver.

Here are cities where Waymo is in various stages of testing (no autonomous public service yet).

There are many northern cities on the list.

Besides having worse driving weather, some of these jurisdictions are less friendly governance-wise to autonomous taxis, as well.

  • Baltimore, MD
  • Boston, MA
  • Charlotte, NC
  • Chicago, IL
  • Detroit, MI
  • London, UK
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • New Orleans, LA
  • New York, NY
  • Philadelphia, PA
  • Pittsburgh, PA
  • Portland, OR
  • Sacramento, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • St. Louis, MO
  • Tokyo, Japan
  • Washington, DC
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I was in a Waymo in Los Angeles a year ago during a sudden downpour, and it slowed significantly, just like most intelligent drivers…. and 80 percent of cars just kept plowing along as if in a video game….

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