Overview
- Waymo has begun inviting members of the public to ride driverless Ojai minivan robotaxis in a limited Las Vegas zone that covers the Strip south of Highway 589 into Boulder Junction and is starting with dozens of vehicles.
- The Nevada Transportation Authority authorized deployment caps that allow Waymo up to 1,000 vehicles, Tesla up to 5,000, and Uber-linked operators up to 1,000, together making as many as 8,000 robotaxis in Clark County over the next year.
- For now the service is invitation-only: people must request an invite and wait for an access code, and Waymo typically expands public access from invites to broader availability within a month or two after launch.
- Waymo already operates a fleet of more than 4,000 robotaxis across over a dozen cities, and competitors including Tesla, Zoox, and Motional are preparing commercial rollouts that will intensify market competition.
- Industry observers and company engineers say technical limits, cost and permitting make it unlikely the full quota will be reached quickly, and regulators and safety groups are pressing for standardized crash and mileage data as services scale.