Waymo robotaxis begin highway routes in three cities

Waymo flipped the highway switch for its driverless fleet, allowing robotaxis in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles to travel highways instead of contorting through surface streets. The change cuts travel times and instantly ups the competitive stakes against human-driven rideshare options, especially for airport runs and cross-town commutes in which minutes count.

What changes for riders now that freeway routing arrives

The Waymo app now offers riders the option to choose freeway routing. The system will opt for a highway drive only when it’s meaningfully faster, a safeguard that helps preserve rider comfort alongside all this speed you’re suddenly experiencing. In recent test rides around Los Angeles, not using the freeway typically increased comparable Google Maps estimates by 10 to 15 minutes; eliminating that constraint makes robotaxis far more viable in rush hour and for long hops across town.

For the time being, the biggest winners are trips that used to be detours: Hollywood’s trip to LAX along I-110, Santa Monica’s commute to Downtown via I-10, or San Francisco’s Mission Bay route to the Peninsula on US‑101. More efficient routing also increases vehicle utilization, potentially increasing supply at peak demand hours without requiring more cars.

Safety validation and inspection for highway driving

Waymo says it has spent more than a year validating highway operations with employees and invited riders, a mix that includes closed-course tests, scenario-heavy simulation and millions of miles driven by its autonomous cars on public roads.

Co‑CEO Dmitri Dolgov framed freeway driving as a hard-won ability: routine for humans, but technically demanding for a robotaxi that must predict high-speed merges, stumpy on-ramps, and impromptu cut-ins.

Freeways operate at a velocity that adds edge cases differently. High-confidence perception at range, precise prediction of what other drivers will do and smooth policy decisions for where to merge and when to change lanes are table stakes. Waymo’s stack has been A/B-tested on these behaviors, and regulators in California and Arizona already allow for driverless operations within specific service maps. The larger point here is that it’s less about a new permit and more about Waymo opening up a capability that it had kept to itself while it matured.

Where highway routing for Waymo works today

Highway routing is available now to riders in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles. Austin and Atlanta are still on surface streets, with highway support in the works over time. In those two regions, Waymo vehicles can also be summoned through the Uber app, a compromise that extends access even as the companies vie for the same trips.

Airports and Bay Area expansion, including San Jose

Waymo also expanded its Bay Area footprint to include San Jose, with curbside pickup at San Jose Mineta International Airport. It matters for first‑mile and last‑mile reliability, in which rider drop‑offs, terminal flows and curb management can mean the difference between adoption and decline. In parallel, Waymo is testing service around San Francisco International with a human safety driver as it moves toward full driverless access.

This corridor coverage is significant. Apple, Nvidia, Google and other large companies are based in the South Bay, meaning a daily commute on US‑101 and I-280. With freeway routing, a robotaxi morphs into a viable alternative to rideshare for routine commutes and predictable-timing airport transfers.

Competitive landscape and the current regulatory context

Waymo is the leader in driverless ride-hailing with GM’s Cruise remaining on a months-long hiatus after investigations into safety by the Department of Motor Vehicles in California and federal regulators. For its part, Tesla has been testing low-scale robotaxi service with human monitors in Austin and has requested authorization to test in Phoenix and California as well, according to company statements and industry coverage. But at scale and in completely driverless mode, Waymo has the larger commercial footprint at the moment.

Regulatory oversight still matters. In California, the Public Utilities Commission regulates commercial driverless ride services and the DMV issues permits for autonomous vehicles; in Arizona, the Department of Transportation sets standards and state-level rules with local cooperation. The opening of freeways in existing service zones indicates that the gating factor was based on safety controls within Waymo, not new approvals.

Why Uber and Lyft drivers will feel the impact

Highways are the lifeblood of high-value trips: to pick up people at airports, for meetings across town or for late-night returns when transit service is scarce. If a robotaxi can meet or beat human-driven ETAs on those corridors — without surge pricing shocks — it nibbles away at the most lucrative pieces of rideshare demand. The first impacts will be felt around airports and tech hubs, in places where early adopters congregate and route predictability is treasured.

Human drivers retain an advantage in edge cases—construction mazes, special events, complex pickups—but the balance is moving. Highway proficiency was one of the final big holes in urban robotaxi usability. Now that has been addressed in three cities, and Waymo has gone from novelty to utility — competitors must respond on the merits of safety as well as of service quality.

Bottom line: Freeway routing reduces the time penalty and unleashes the trips we care about. For passengers, that translates to faster, more reliable rides. For gig drivers, it’s a new type of competition coming at them in the fast lane.