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Waymo has opened its robotaxi service to everyone in Los Angeles, sunsetting a waitlist that had grown to 300,000 people.
The Alphabet-backed company said starting Tuesday anyone can download the Waymo One app to hail a ride in its service area, which is now about 80-square miles in Los Angeles County.
Waymo has had a presence in Los Angeles since 2019, periodically coming in to map neighborhoods, including downtown, Miracle Mile, Koreatown, Santa Monica, Westwood and West Hollywood. In 2022, the company announced Los Angeles would be one of its next commercial markets, following Phoenix and San Francisco.
Waymo wasn’t able to flip that commercial switch immediately however. Waymo received in August 2023 the final permits required by California Public Utilities Commision to operate a commercial service in San Francisco. In March 2024, Waymo received approval from the CPUC to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Los Angeles as well expanded territory in the Bay Area that included the San Francisco Peninsula and San Francisco freeways. Waymo removed the waitlist for San Francisco riders in June.
This latest expansion comes just a week since Waymo disclosed it raised $5.6 billion in Series C funding round led by parent company Alphabet. Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, Fidelity, Tiger Global, Perry Creek, and T. Rowe Price all joined the round. Waymo previously declined to say how much each invested.
The investment boosts Waymo’s overall valuation to more than $45 billion, according to Bloomberg News. Alphabet had previously announced in July that it was pledging another $5 billion to Waymo without providing more details on the “multi-year” commitment.
