Waymo opens driverless rides in Las Vegas, its fourth new US city this month

Waymo has opened fully autonomous rides to the public in Las Vegas, the company said. More than 100,000 people had registered interest after months of mapping the city’s roads.

The service area covers nearly 24 miles, from Boulder Junction up the Strip to Sahara Avenue, and from the edge of Spring Valley across to Winchester. Waymo has tie-ups with Allegiant Stadium and The Venetian, and Zoox already runs in the city.

Las Vegas joins Denver and San Diego as the first cities with majority Ojai fleets. The Ojai is a four-passenger van, built by Zeekr, running the sixth-generation Waymo Driver.

Denver, San Diego and Tampa all opened on 1 September, making Las Vegas the fourth new American city in a fortnight. Nashville went live on the Lyft app days before that.

Waymo says its Driver is involved in 94% fewer serious injury or worse crashes than human drivers over the same distance. The company has reported more than 20 million completed trips.

Europe is where the clock slows down.

Waymo said last October it would bring driverless rides to London, and its own timetable put a passenger pilot in April and commercial service in September.

It is September. No operator in London has permission to sell driverless rides to the public.

Three things have to happen first. The Vehicle Certification Agency must list the vehicle as safe for self-driving in London’s operational domain, the DVSA must issue an automated passenger services permit, and Transport for London must give its consent, within six weeks of a formal request from the DVSA.

As of late August, none of the three had been completed.

Wayve has 15 private hire licences, granted in August, and they cover supervised rides with a safety driver in every car.

TfL’s director of strategy, Christina Calderato, said in July that “I do not think we are in a rush to get the guidelines out“, and that the authority would not be able to take applications for some time.

Waymo’s other European city is Munich, where it began mapping last month and targets commercial service in late 2027. Las Vegas took a few months of driving around.