Waymo Adds Nearly 250 Square Miles of Robotaxi Coverage in 5 Cities
The expansion connects BART at Berryessa station in San Jose and extends San Diego service to La Jolla.
Waymo is expanding its driverless service area by nearly 250 square miles over the next week, adding coverage in Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The move brings the total size of the expansion to roughly the same area as Tesla’s entire Houston Robotaxi geofence, but spread across five established markets.
What Happened
The company announced the expansion in a blog post, detailing specific geographic additions in each city. In Los Angeles, service now runs down the coast into the South Bay, through Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach to Torrance. Nashville’s zone pushes further south, allowing riders to reach the zoo, while Orlando sees nearly doubled coverage on the east side and more service downtown. San Diego’s service area now stretches north to La Jolla, including University City and Clairemont. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Waymo is pushing further into the South Bay, establishing a connection to BART at Berryessa station in San Jose, with the service area now running from San Francisco down the Peninsula to San Jose and Campbell.
Why It Matters
This expansion highlights the diverging strategies of Waymo and Tesla in the robotaxi race. While Tesla recently stretched its Houston geofence to about 254 square miles, Robotaxi Tracker data indicates only 34 vehicles are operating in that area. In contrast, Waymo operates in 15 US metros with more than 500,000 paid rides per week. On the metric of actual usage, Waymo logged 3.9 million rider-only miles per week in Q2 2026, compared to Tesla’s 558,000 driverless miles in its latest reported week, a difference of approximately 7x. The rapid growth in new markets like San Diego, which went public on September 1 with roughly 50 square miles, demonstrates Waymo’s ability to scale operations quickly in young markets.
The Bottom Line
Waymo has surpassed 1,400 square miles of coverage across 11 cities since May and is now mapping Toronto for a 2028 launch. The updated maps are already available in the Waymo app, though the company did not disclose the number of vehicles added to cover the new ground.
