Waymo Takes To Philadelphia

Waymo is expanding its testing to Philadelphia, deploying a small fleet of vehicles with human safety drivers behind the wheel, according to CNBC.

The Alphabet-owned company confirmed to CNBC that testing will run through the fall, with cars initially driven manually through complex areas like downtown and local freeways.

“This city is a National Treasure,” Waymo posted on X. “It’s a city of love, where eagles fly with a gritty spirit and cheese that spreads and cheese that steaks. Our road trip continues to Philly next.”

Waymo said locals can expect to see its vehicles at all hours across neighborhoods such as North Central, Eastwick, University City, and near the Delaware River.

These so-called “road trips” help the company gather mapping data and assess the performance of its autonomous system, Waymo Driver, in unfamiliar environments. They’re often a precursor to deciding whether to launch a commercial ride-hailing service in a new city.

CNBC reports that the Philadelphia pilot follows similar manual testing efforts in New York, where Waymo recently applied for a permit to operate with trained specialists in Manhattan—though New York law currently prohibits full driverless operation.

Waymo One already provides over 250,000 paid rides weekly. The push into new cities comes as Alphabet faces pressure to monetize AI ventures. Its “Other Bets” segment, which includes Waymo, earned $1.65 billion in 2024 (up from $1.53 billion in 2023) but posted a $4.44 billion loss, wider than the $4.09 billion loss the previous year.

Waymo already operates in Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix and added Atlanta to its robotaxi portfolio this summer.

Tesla’s robotaxi reveal and Waymo’s rapid expansion across U.S. cities have dominated the conversation around autonomous vehicles (AVs) in North America. A note from Goldman Sachs out earlier this summer (read here) provided a framework showing that AVs have officially entered the commercialization phase in ridesharing and trucking, and their proliferation into the real economy is poised for hyperscale well into the 2030s.

“There are already over 1,500 Waymo robotaxis on roads in the U.S. Tesla hopes to begin commercial robotaxi operations in June in Austin,” a team of Goldman analysts led by Mark Delaney wrote in a note to clients earlier this summer.

The U.S. rideshare market, currently valued at $58 billion, is expected to swell to over $336 billion by 2030. Delaney estimates robotaxis will capture about $7 billion of that market, representing 8% of total rideshare bookings. While this figure may seem modest, it represents a significant leap from the $300 million projected for 2025, with a nearly 90% compound annual growth rate.

Waymo leads the autonomous vehicle space with 1,500 vehicles operating across various metro areas nationwide, logging over 250,000 paid rides per week. Those cities include Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, with plans to expand into seven U.S. cities by the end of 2026.

Delaney forecasted, “With this rollout from Waymo, coupled with planned launches from others including Tesla and Zoox, we expect over 1.8K commercial autonomous vehicles in the US by the end of 2025 and 35K in 2030.”

Here’s the latest on the robotaxi industry: