Waymo To Launch Robotaxi Service in Dallas Next Year

On Sunday, a Dallas Innovates reporter spotted what looked like a robotaxi rolling through the streets of Deep Ellum. That little mystery got solved on Monday, when Waymo announced plans to launch a robotaxi service in Dallas in 2026—with reports noting that Waymo has begun testing on the city’s streets.

Mountain View, California-based Waymo is already operating driverless robotaxi services in Austin, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Waymo—formerly Google’s self-driving car project—also plans to expand its robotaxi service to Miami and Washington, D.C. “in the near future.”

Waymo currently serves “over 250,000 paid trips and drives millions of miles every week” across its five service cities, the company said.

Partnering with Avis on fleet management

Waymo said it will offer its ride-hailing service to Dallasites through its Waymo app, and announced a new partnership with Avis Budget Group to manage its robotaxi fleet. Avis will provide end-to-end fleet management services, including infrastructure, vehicle readiness, maintenance, and general depot operations, Waymo said.

“We look forward to bringing our fully autonomous ride-hailing service to the people of Dallas next year, offering a new era of safe and seamless transportation,” Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a statement. “Working together with our fleet partner Avis, Waymo will offer more riders a stress-free way to get around.”

Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said city hall supports the launch.

“We’re excited that fully autonomous ride-hailing services are scheduled to begin in Dallas next year,” she said in a statement. “The Waymo and Avis partnership will offer an innovative, technology-based transportation option for our residents and visitors. We look forward to the launch of this new service.”

Avis Budget Group CEO Brian Choi said his company’s partnership with Waymo “marks a pivotal milestone in our evolution, from a rental car company to a leading provider of fleet management, infrastructure, and operations to the broader mobility ecosystem.”

“Together, we’re committed to making scaled autonomous mobility a reality for the people of Dallas, with plans to expand to additional cities in the near future,” Choi added.

Uber/Avride and Lyft to launch robotaxis in Dallas, too

In October, Uber and Avride announced an autonomous delivery and mobility partnership that was to bring robot deliveries to Dallas later in 2024, followed by a robotaxi service in 2025. [Photo: Business Wire]

News of Waymo’s planned Dallas launch comes on the heels of two other recent robotaxi announcements for the city.

Last October, San Francisco-based Uber and Austin-based Avride announced a multiyear partnership that will bring Avride’s delivery robots and robotaxis to Uber and Uber Eats. The Uber robotaxi service is slated to launch for riders in Dallas later in 2025, the company said in October.

[Photo: Lyft]

Lyft said in February that it will roll out its own Dallas robotaxi service “as soon as 2026.” Lyft CEO David Risher made the announcement Monday with a post on X, saying the robotaxi service will be a collaboration with two other companies—Japan-based Marubeni, a leading auto and fleet financing company which will provide the cars, and Israel-based Mobileye, whose autonomous driving tech will power the driverless operations on Dallas roadways.

GM’s Cruise robotaxis almost launched in Dallas

A Cruise robotaxi, pictured in Downtown Dallas in June 2024, could potentially benefit from U.S. Patent No. 12062290. Recently granted to GM Cruise Holdings and invented by Dallas’s Clifton Trigg Hutchinson, the patent describes a system for dynamically dispatching autonomous vehicles. This technology enables real-time route adjustments based on user location updates, enhancing urban transport efficiency. [Photo: Cruise]

A Cruise robotaxi, pictured in downtown Dallas in June 2024. [Photo: Cruise]

In yet another brush with driverless robotaxis on Dallas streets, General Motors-owned Cruise began testing its self-driving vehicles here in October 2023, following earlier service launches in Austin, Phoenix, and Cruise’s home city of San Francisco. Its Dallas test got temporarily derailed one month later following a collision between a Cruise robotaxi and a pedestrian in San Francisco. Then, after Cruise testing resumed in Dallas last July, General Motors shut down the unit entirely last December, saying it planned to fold the unit’s employees into other GM teams working on advanced driver assist systems and consumer autonomous vehicles.

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