New fleet data shows Waymo rides surging as California and Texas remain the core of its robotaxi expansion.
Waymo has expanded from robotaxi service in three cities in September 2024 to 15 U.S. cities today, and it is now averaging 500,000 paid rides a week, according to the source.
About 80% of Waymo’s roughly 4,000 robotaxis are concentrated in California and Texas, showing that the company’s national rollout is still heavily anchored in two states.
Waymo’s Texas fleet grew 49% in the past three weeks to 1,102 autonomous vehicles as of September 24, according to state vehicle registrations and the Texas Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Tracker.
Waymo is using a new China-built Zeekr RT minivan, branded “Ojai,” to scale faster in Texas and other markets, even though current U.S. trade policy imposes steep import tariffs on vehicles built in China.
Waymo is scaling its robotaxi business quickly, with service now in 15 U.S. cities and 500,000 paid rides a week. The fleet data, though, shows the expansion is far less evenly spread than the headline numbers suggest.
What happened with Waymo is that its commercial robotaxi rollout has accelerated sharply over the past year, but the company is concentrating most of its vehicles in California and Texas, where a new Zeekr-built “Ojai” minivan is helping drive growth despite tariff pressure. That concentration matters. A company can claim a broad national footprint and still be making a narrower operational bet, and Waymo’s bet right now looks heavily tilted toward the two states where it can put the most vehicles on the road and learn fastest from real paying riders. About 80% of Waymo’s roughly 4,000 robotaxis are in California and Texas, leaving only about 800 vehicles spread across other states, including Arizona and Florida.
Just two years ago, the picture looked much smaller. In September 2024, Waymo was operating in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Today it offers robotaxi service in 15 U.S. cities, with most of those commercial launches happening in the past year, according to the source material. The ridership figure has climbed alongside that footprint, reaching an average of 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week.
Texas is where the ramp has become most visible. Waymo’s fleet in the state increased 49% in the past three weeks, according to state vehicle registrations and data from the Texas Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Tracker. As of September 24, Waymo had 1,102 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas. The pace there changed suddenly. Through most of the summer, Waymo’s Texas fleet was growing, but slowly, from about 600 vehicles in June to more than 700 by the end of August. Then September hit, and the curve steepened. That kind of step change can signal a supply shift as much as a market shift, and in Waymo’s case the obvious variable is vehicle mix.
A growing share of the fleet is made up of the Ojai, a modified Zeekr RT minivan that Waymo has branded as its next-volume robotaxi platform. In Texas, those minivans now account for about a third of the fleet, according to the source. Most of the rest remain the familiar white Jaguar I-Pace electric SUVs that defined Waymo’s earlier expansion. The distinction is more than cosmetic. The Ojai carries Waymo’s sixth-generation self-driving system, and the company is positioning it as the vehicle that can push robotaxis from limited deployment into something closer to mass scale. The minivan’s interior is built for heavier-use commercial duty, it includes an upgraded rider interface, and it comes with Google’s Gemini AI as an in-car assistant for riders.
Strip away the software stack, though, and Waymo is still relying on a vehicle built by a Chinese automaker at a time when Washington is making that more expensive. The Ojai is based on Zeekr’s SEA-M platform, and Zeekr is owned by Geely Holding Group, which also owns Volvo. Base vehicles are shipped to the U.S. without Chinese connected-car technology, then sent to Waymo’s Arizona factory to be outfitted with the company’s autonomous driving system.
That setup reveals something important about Waymo’s current strategy. The company is no longer just proving autonomy works in premium markets. It is trying to solve the harder problem of unit economics, and the Ojai appears central to that effort. The source says the vehicle is supposed to drive down costs and ultimately help Waymo reach profitability. For now, however, current U.S. trade policy means vehicles built in China face steep import tariffs, raising Waymo’s cost on every Ojai it brings in.
Waymo appears willing to absorb that hit, at least for now. A New York-based research firm cited in the source said in its September report that Waymo is on track to bring 5,100 of the vehicles into the U.S. by the end of the year, based on shipping records. That is a striking number for a company with a fleet of roughly 4,000 robotaxis today. It suggests Waymo is planning not just incremental growth, but a meaningful rebalancing of the fleet around a vehicle purpose-built for robotaxi use.
The Texas push also says something about distribution. Waymo launched commercial service in Austin through a partnership with Uber in March 2025, allowing riders to hail its robotaxis through the Uber app. Since then, it has expanded service in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. That matters because the company is pairing vehicle supply with a demand channel that consumers already use, instead of asking riders in every new market to adopt a standalone robotaxi habit from scratch.
California remains the less surprising pillar. Waymo is headquartered in Silicon Valley, and much of its early testing and development happened there. California also offers a user base with a long history of trying transportation tech early, from ride-hailing to EVs to app-based delivery. In that sense, California is the company’s product home market. Texas looks more like the scaling market, where Waymo can add vehicles quickly across multiple metro areas and test whether robotaxis can become a broader consumer service rather than a Bay Area novelty.
The background
For the U.S. autonomous vehicle sector, this is one of the clearest signs yet that the market is shifting from pilot-era metrics to operating metrics. The headline number is still city count, because that is easy to market. The more revealing numbers are fleet concentration, vehicle sourcing, and weekly paid rides. Those tell observers where Waymo believes the economics might finally start to work. There is also a competitive subtext here. Waymo’s growth in Texas and Florida points toward Sun Belt markets where sprawling metros, car dependency, and relatively favorable operating conditions can make robotaxi deployments easier to scale. Newer markets like Las Vegas are likely to see more Ojai vehicles as well, according to the source. That pattern suggests Waymo is prioritizing places where service can be widened with less friction than in dense, regulation-heavy urban cores. National coverage makes for a strong narrative. Concentrated density of service is what actually builds a transportation business.
Florida is the other state to watch. Waymo already operates in three cities there, according to the source, and it is described as another burgeoning hot spot. If Texas has become the immediate release valve for new vehicle arrivals, Florida looks like the next obvious destination for Ojai deployments, especially as Waymo tries to prove the minivan can work across several different U.S. geographies.
What's next
The next concrete marker is the end of the year. If the September estimate cited in the source is right and Waymo brings 5,100 Ojai vehicles into the U.S. by then, the key question will be how quickly those minivans are deployed in Texas, Florida, and newer markets like Las Vegas, and whether weekly paid rides keep climbing fast enough to justify absorbing tariff-driven costs.
Frequently asked questions
How fast is Waymo expanding its robotaxi service?
Waymo has grown from operating robotaxi service in three cities in September 2024 to 15 U.S. cities today. The company is also averaging about 500,000 paid rides per week, showing rapid commercial scaling.
Where are most of Waymo's robotaxis located right now?
Roughly 80% of Waymo's approximately 4,000 robotaxis are concentrated in California and Texas. That means its national expansion is still heavily centered in those two states even as it enters more cities.
How many paid rides does Waymo provide each week?
According to the source, Waymo is now averaging 500,000 paid rides a week. That figure signals growing consumer adoption and offers one of the clearest measures of its robotaxi business momentum.
Is Texas becoming a major growth market for Waymo?
Yes. The source says Waymo's Texas fleet grew 49% in the past three weeks, indicating that the state is becoming a key engine of expansion for the company.
What does Waymo's fleet data say about its national rollout?
The fleet data suggests Waymo is scaling quickly but not evenly across the country. While it now spans 15 U.S. cities, the majority of vehicles remain clustered in California and Texas, showing a rollout anchored in proven markets.
Why does Waymo fleet concentration in two states matter?
Fleet concentration matters because it shows where Waymo sees the strongest demand, operational readiness, and regulatory support. It also helps explain why growth headlines about national expansion can still depend heavily on performance in a small number of states.
