Waymo plans robotaxi launch in Washington, DC in 2026

Waymo announced that Washington, DC will be its next robotaxi city. The company aims to launch its Waymo One ridehailing service in the nation’s capitol in 2026 — though it acknowledged that it will first need to change the city law prohibiting fully autonomous vehicles without safety drivers.

Currently, companies that want to test autonomous vehicles in DC are required to have a human driver behind the steering wheel in case something goes wrong. Tech advocates have been pressing the city council to loosen the restrictions to allow fully autonomous vehicles on public roads. A spokesperson for the DC transportation department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Alphabet-owned company’s manually driven vehicles have been spotted around DC since last year. A Waymo product manager told a local news outlet that the company was primarily focused on neighborhoods like Dupont Circle, Foggy Bottom, and Penn Quarter. Waymo has not commented on the size of its service area nor which neighborhoods it is targeting if it launches next year.

Launching a robotaxi service in the heart of the federal government is a risky move. The feds have largely taken a back seat in regulating autonomous vehicles, leaving it to the states to develop their own rulebooks for safe deployment. Legislation that would dramatically increase the number of AVs on the road has been stalled in Congress for over seven years, with lawmakers at odds over a range of issues, including safety, liability, and the right number of exemptions from federal motor vehicle safety standards.

But beyond that, DC is its own city with its own transportation challenges. It has some of the worst traffic congestion in the US thanks to an ever-expanding population and stagnate infrastructure. Waymo hasn’t said how many vehicles it intends to bring to DC.

Waymo currently operates its driverless ridehailing vehicles in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. It recently launched a partnership with Uber in Austin, and it plans to expand that deal to Atlanta later this year. It also plans to operate robotaxis in Silicon Valley and Miami.

In DC, customers will use the company’s ridehail app, Waymo One, to summon driverless vehicles. Waymo currently provides 200,000 passenger trips a week using the app.

Waymo markets itself as a safer option than human-driven vehicles. The company has released insurance data that shows its vehicles cause less property damage and fewer bodily injuries when they crash than human drivers.

Update March 25th 3:28pm ET: A spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) sent the following statement:

“The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is aware of Waymo’s announcement. DDOT is actively developing a permitting framework to support the safe and responsible testing of autonomous vehicles in Washington, DC. Current law requires an operator behind the wheel and does not allow driverless commercial operations. DDOT is engaged in an iterative rulemaking process with our agency partners, including the Department of For-Hire Vehicles, to refine our approach based on public input, emerging best practices, and lessons learned from peer jurisdictions. Our priority remains ensuring that any company operating in the District—such as Waymo—does so in a manner that prioritizes safety, aligns with our regulatory framework, and integrates seamlessly into DC’s unique transportation ecosystem.”