Waymo expands to Denver and Seattle with its Zeekr-made vans

Waymo introduced Tuesday that it’s going to convey each of its autos — the Jaguar I-Tempo SUV and the Zeekr van — to Denver and Seattle beginning this week, the most recent transfer in a continued enlargement throughout the USA.

The autos will likely be manually pushed to begin, earlier than the corporate begins testing its autonomous tech in each cities. Waymo informed TechCrunch that it hopes to begin providing robotaxi journeys in Denver subsequent yr and the Seattle metropolitan space “as quickly as we’re permitted to take action.” Denver and Seattle will likely be two of probably the most extreme-weather cities that Waymo is feeling out, giving it an opportunity to check out its tech in snow, wind, and rain that’s more durable to return by in locations like Phoenix.

The brand new cities be part of a rising checklist of locations the place Waymo is working within the U.S. Simply final week the corporate introduced that it has greater than 2,000 robotaxis in its industrial fleet countrywide, with 800 within the San Francisco Bay Space, 500 in Los Angeles, 400 in Phoenix, 100 in Austin, and “dozens” in Atlanta. Waymo has additionally introduced plans to launch a commercial robotaxi services in Dallas, Miami, and Washington, D.C., next year, and not too long ago acquired a allow to start testing in New York City.

That’s to not point out the opposite cities the place Waymo has dipped its toes. It’s introduced autos on “road trips” to places like Philadelphia and plans to do the identical in Las Vegas, San Diego, Houston, Orlando, and San Antonio.