Waymo’s next robotaxi city will be Miami

Waymo is making the moves on Magic City.

Alphabet’s robotaxi service said it would launch in Miami in 2026. The company has been testing its autonomous vehicles in the Florida city on-and-off since 2019, and more recently has begun to lay the groundwork in earnest.

Waymo plans to start “reacquainting” its autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to Miami’s streets in 2025. And in 2026, it expects to start making its vehicles available to riders through its Waymo One ridehail app.

The vehicles will be maintained by a company called Moove, which provides fleet services, as well as a range of financial products for mobility companies. The African company (it has several offices in Nigeria) is backed by Uber and was recently valued at $750 million.

Moove will start out by taking over Waymo’s fleet management operations in Phoenix. That includes cleaning the vehicles, charging them, and making sure that the sensors are calibrated and unobstructed.

Waymo’s robotaxi business is slowly growing. It currently operates fleets of driverless cars in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix. It also plans to launch a robotaxi service in Atlanta in an exclusive partnership with Uber. Waymo said recently it crossed the threshold of providing 150,000 paid trips per week.

Miami once played host to Ford-backed ArgoAI’s autonomous vehicle testing, but the company shut down when Ford pulled its funding.