Waymo brings robotaxi service to Denver, San Diego and Tampa

Waymo brings robotaxi service to Denver, San Diego and Tampa

2 min read•Sep 2, 2026•
Maya Patel
Maya Patel

Waymo has started offering its robotaxi service to the public in Denver, San Diego, and Tampa, first reported by TechCrunch. The rollout extends the Alphabet-owned company’s commercial operations to 14 U.S. cities, while riders will receive invitations on a rolling basis and access will increase slowly under its usual commercial playbook.

The expansion has increased Waymo’s fleet of self-driving Jaguar I-Pace hatchbacks and the Ojai minivan to more than 4,000 vehicles. The company will invite riders on a rolling basis and slowly ramp up access, following its usual commercial playbook.

In Denver and San Diego, the Zeekr-made Ojai will be the only autonomous vehicle available to riders. The minivan features Waymo’s sixth-generation self-driving system and is designed to be cheaper to build, operate, and maintain.

The Ojai fleet is about 300 vehicles for now, compared with Waymo’s Jaguar I-Pace numbers, and is expected to grow quickly as Waymo chases profitability alongside growth. The rollout thus pairs a wider service footprint with a newer vehicle designed to lower build, operating, and maintenance costs while its fleet remains small.

Waymo generally maps and tests its autonomous-vehicle technology in a new market, removes the human safety operator, and then lets employees, media, and other invited guests try the service. How soon paying riders can use the service often hinges on local regulations; California requires permits from two different agencies covering driverless vehicles on public roads and the ability to charge for rides.

Waymo operated a robotaxi service in Phoenix for years before receiving all permits required to operate and charge customers for driverless rides in San Francisco in August 2023.

Tesla charges for rides in driverless Tesla Model Y vehicles in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, although service in some markets is limited. Tesla continues to expand within those cities and add vehicles to its fleet, while banking on the Cybercab, a custom-built two-seater with no steering wheel or pedals.

Last month, the Nevada Transportation Authority unanimously approved a permit allowing Waymo to operate up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles over the next year in Clark County, home to Las Vegas. Tesla and Uber were also granted permits by the agency, while Waymo is planning to launch a robotaxi service in London and Munich.

Arizona appeals court vacates manslaughter sentence after AI video

An Arizona appeals court vacated the 10.5-year sentence of Gabriel Horcasitas while upholding his manslaughter conviction, first reported by Nytimes. The case returns to Maricopa County Superior Court for resentencing without the video, after judges found that it presented scripted statements as if the victim himself were speaking in court.

The three-judge panel said the video generated a likeness of Christopher Pelkey’s voice and appearance but did not reflect actual events. It found that allowing and relying on the video made the sentencing fundamentally unfair, and noted that no prior Arizona case had addressed the admissibility of such a depiction at sentencing.

The judges said a victim’s right to speak cannot override a defendant’s right to be sentenced on accurate, reliable information. They said the video collapsed the distinction between the family’s belief about what Pelkey would have said and Pelkey’s own voice and opinions.

The ruling distinguishes family members speaking about Pelkey from a generated likeness that appeared to speak for him.

Pelkey’s sister, Stacey Wales, presented the video during Horcasitas’s sentencing alongside victim-impact statements from family and friends. Wales wrote the script and said her husband and the couple’s longtime business partner helped create the video using Pelkey’s voice from a YouTube video and his face and torso from a funeral-service poster.

Judge Todd F. Lang praised the video as genuine, then imposed the maximum sentence of 10.5 years, more than the nine years prosecutors had sought.

Wales said nobody intended to make the court believe Pelkey was alive or that he had recorded the video before his death. She said she disagreed with the ruling and argued that families use slide shows, collages, hypothetical conversations and poetry to convey grief.

Wales compared the AI video with photography, saying it took 15 years of landmark cases around the 1860s before photography was widely accepted in courts.

The case returns to Maricopa County Superior Court for a new sentencing hearing without the AI-generated video.