Waymo starts driverless rides in San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa, Denver

Waymo will begin rolling out its driverless vehicles in four new cities in the coming weeks, furthering its expansion in the US and strengthening its lead over domestic rivals Tesla and Zoox. Amazon.

AlphabetThe company said Wednesday that its robotaxi division will soon begin offering fully autonomous rides in San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa, Florida and Denver. The launch will initially be aimed at Alphabet employees, but will later expand to the public.

Waymo, which first announced its expansion plans last year, currently operates driverless vehicles in more than 10 cities. Although Waymo has a huge advantage in the market, Tesla’s and Zoox is slowly moving into new cities. Zoox is preparing to roll out its robotaxi service to some members of the public in Austin, Texas, and Miami later this year, and Tesla is expanding beyond Austin to other parts of Texas as well as Miami.

As of May, Waymo’s domestic fleet included nearly 4,000 robotaxis equipped with the company’s fifth- and sixth-generation autonomous driving systems, according to filings with U.S. auto safety regulators.

Waymo’s latest announcement comes as the company faces challenges as more of its cars hit the roads. Some of their vehicles crashed into flooded roads following extreme weather events, and some vehicles in San Francisco were submerged during July 4th celebrations. I’m stuck in traffic Their batteries ran out for so long that someone else was seen driving into the fireworks.

In February, Waymo raised $16 billion from Alphabet and other backers. The company plans to launch service in London, its first international market, towards the end of this year. The company has completed more than 20 million autonomous rides in total and aims to reach 1 million weekly trips by the end of the year.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

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