Waymo stretches its driverless map across Silicon Valley

Previously

In Parts 1 and 2, Waymo published a claims study run with Swiss Re and said it gave more than 4 million rides in 2024, as GM shut Cruise. Its fares and unit costs stayed undisclosed.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 2025 — Waymo is opening rides in the town where it began testing 16 years ago. Here's what changed since Part 2 (December 2024), what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of March 11, 2025)

New area: Mountain View, Los Altos, Palo Alto and "parts of Sunnyvale," 27 square miles, around the clock. (TechCrunch)
Existing Bay Area coverage: 55 square miles. (TechCrunch)
Who can ride: invite-only, for select Waymo One customers in the area's ZIP codes; previously employees only. (The Verge)
Funding behind the push: a $5.6 billion round that valued Waymo at $45 billion. (TechCrunch)
Fares and expansion costs: not disclosed.

What launched

Waymo said on Tuesday, March 11, that it would start offering rides to people in its early rider program starting Wednesday, TechCrunch reported. Waymo's Help Center says it is "gradually adding riders"; people inside the territory can open the app and will be notified when they can travel. The notice names the same four cities, with Sunnyvale again listed only in part.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that riders were picked from recent app users by ZIP code. It also noted Waymo's earlier Peninsula expansion to Daly City, Broadmoor and Colma, and that the company began testing in Mountain View in 2009.

Why Waymo cares about this patch

"Opening our fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Silicon Valley marks a special milestone in our Bay Area journey," Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo's chief product officer, said in a statement reported by The Verge. "This is where Waymo began and where we're headquartered."

The Verge said the service had been limited to Waymo employees before the expansion.

What the numbers add up to

Taken together, TechCrunch's figures put Waymo's Bay Area coverage at about 82 square miles: 55 already served plus the 27 added. That is our arithmetic from the reported numbers, not a Waymo total, and TechCrunch did not say whether the two zones connect.

For scale, Waymo said in December 2024 that it served "nearly 500 square miles" across four metro areas (Part 2). The Silicon Valley zone is small by comparison, but it sits around Waymo's headquarters and the streets where it has tested longest.

Cars in the new zone run around the clock, TechCrunch said, but Waymo gave no fleet size for it, and none of the reports gave expected ride volumes for the four cities.

The wider race

The week before, Uber users in Austin began getting matched with Waymo vehicles, TechCrunch reported. Uber and Waymo planned the same in Atlanta later in 2025, and Waymo was launching in Miami with Moove.

Waymo planned to test in as many as 10 new U.S. cities in 2025, including Las Vegas and San Diego, TechCrunch said. Waymo employees had been taking autonomous trips in Atlanta since January, TechCrunch said. With Cruise's commercial business shut, TechCrunch called Waymo "the leading U.S. robotaxi company." Rivals were moving too: Tesla planned to trial a robotaxi service in Austin in June, Zoox was preparing Las Vegas, and Avride, which TechCrunch called a Yandex spinoff, planned a Dallas service with Uber. Avride grew out of the self-driving unit of Yandex, which was founded in Russia. Its parent is now Nebius Group, the Amsterdam-based company formerly called Yandex N.V., which sold all its Russia-based businesses in July 2024 and kept Avride (Nebius; SEC).

What went wrong

Not open to everyone. Rides were invite-only, so most local residents could not yet hail a car.
Partial cities. Sunnyvale is covered only in part.
No freeway or airport service. None of the reports describe service to San Jose's or San Francisco's airports, or on freeways, at this stage.
What we don't know yet: how many riders were invited, how many cars serve the area, and when it opens to the public.

Our follow-up question for Waymo

How many riders and vehicles are in the Silicon Valley service area, and what has to happen before it opens to everyone?

Later developments (added Oct. 2026)

On Nov. 12, 2025, Waymo said its service now covered the entire Peninsula to San Jose, with curbside service at San José Mineta International Airport, and began freeway rides. See Part 4. (Waymo)
On Dec. 3, 2025, Avride and Uber launched robotaxi rides in a nine-square-mile area of Dallas, with a human safety operator behind the wheel, TechCrunch reported. (TechCrunch)

Sources

TechCrunch, Sean O'Kane, “Waymo expands its robotaxi service across Silicon Valley,” March 11, 2025. techcrunch.com
The Verge, Andrew J. Hawkins, “Waymo is now offering 24/7 robotaxi rides in Silicon Valley,” March 11, 2025. theverge.com
San Francisco Chronicle, Rachel Swan, “Waymo expands driverless robotaxi service into Silicon Valley,” March 11, 2025. sfchronicle.com
Waymo Help Center, “New Silicon Valley service area,” March 11, 2025. support.google.com
Waymo, The Waymo Team, “Taking riders further, safely with freeways,” Nov. 12, 2025. waymo.com
Nebius Group (then Yandex N.V.), “YNV announces successful completion of the divestment of its Russia-based businesses,” July 15, 2024. nebius.com
Nebius Group N.V., Form 6-K (Avride Group, Inc., “a subsidiary of Nebius Group N.V.”), Oct. 22, 2025. sec.gov
TechCrunch, Kirsten Korosec, “Uber and Avride launch robotaxi service in Dallas,” Dec. 3, 2025. techcrunch.com

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder