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Waymo Begins Road-Trip Mapping in Philadelphia, Seeks New York Testing Permit

Vehicles are gathering detailed mapping data to refine Waymo’s Driver ahead of future rollouts.

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A Waymo autonomous taxi, left, and a vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes in Austin, Texas, US, on Friday, June 20, 2025. Elon Musk said Tesla Inc. has set June 22 as a tentative launch date for the start of its robotaxi network. Photographer: Eli Hartman/Bloomberg

Overview

  • Waymo kicked off its Philadelphia road-trip testing on July 7, deploying a limited fleet of human-driven, sensor-equipped vehicles across downtown, freeways and neighborhoods from North Central to Eastwick.
  • The road-trip program is designed to feed real-world mapping and performance data into the autonomous system to adapt to local traffic patterns and infrastructure.
  • In New York City, Waymo is conducting preliminary manual drives from north of Central Park to Battery Park and mapping Jersey City and Hoboken while awaiting approval for human-supervised autonomous trials.
  • Pennsylvania regulations permit conditional driverless tests under human oversight, but New York law mandates a human specialist in the front seat—a requirement Waymo is lobbying to amend.
  • Previous road-trip tours have preceded commercial launches in markets such as Los Angeles, and Waymo plans public robotaxi services in Miami later this year and Washington, D.C. by 2026.