Waymo opens to all of Miami, offering rides in driverless cars

You may have seen them zipping around city streets: white cars, decked out with cameras and radars, and lacking one obvious feature.

A driver.

Yes, these robotaxis by the company Waymo have already been getting to know Miami’s landscape and available to over 100,000 users since January, and to an even more limited number for more than a year.

But now, the company is opening its doors to anyone in the Magic City.

Here’s what to know.

What is Waymo?

Waymo, a spinoff of Google, appears to be the first company to offer fully autonomous freeway rides, without a human specialist in the car, to fare-paying riders in the United States, company spokesperson Sandy Karp told NBC News in 2025.

Miami was the sixth city to roll out Waymo rides to the public. Each ride can be booked inside of the Waymo app and costs around the same as other ride shares.

Where can you go in a Waymo?

According to the company, the robotaxis will also begin to introduce highway travel to Miami service including on Interstate 95, the Dolphin Expressway (State Road 836), and the Palmetto Expressway (State Road 826).

“Following its recent expansion to Miami Beach and Bal Harbour, Waymo offers a more convenient, autonomous option to get around Miami and the city’s top events this Spring,” the company said.

How does Waymo work?

When you hail the ride in the app, it will show you the Waymo car closest to you. The app works similar to other ride share apps in that you can add destinations to your route. The car will remain locked until you select it.

As soon as you select it, the passenger door handles will pop out, meaning that the car is unlocked and ready to ride.

Once inside, the Waymo has all of the bells and whistles a regular car has: rearview mirror, controls, even windshield wipers. It’s all technology that is not needed for the driver (as there is none), but Waymo says it’s in place for the rider to feel more comfortable.

And in the event you do not feel safe, something goes wrong, or you take too long to get out of the car once you have reached your destination, driver support is at the ready.

But there’s other features. The car is equipped with 29 cameras, six radars, and five lidars.

NBC6’s ride in a Waymo

NBC6 saw all those features operate in real time in January.

As we were about to cross an intersection, the car came to an immediate halt. The screen in the Waymo showed a blue car on the right hand side.

“So this car is going the wrong way, and so Waymo saw it and did a veer around it,” explained Mark, a Waymo representative inside of the vehicle.

As we came upon a complicated intersection that had bumper-to-bumper traffic, the route Waymo wanted to take called for a left.

“But it may be too traffic-ky so we will see how the AI of the system will decide on how best to procced,” Mark said.

And in less than two minutes, it slowly pushed forward, then continued on.

Waymo worries?

The decision-making skills of the self-driving car bring up a frequent question: how will the public feel about trusting these self-driving vehicles?

In July, the company said it had passed more than 100 million miles without a human behind the wheel and not one fatality.

But there have been several snafus since the since the service opened to the public in November 2024, and the company has gotten some unwanted attention.

In March, a Waymo robotaxi briefly blocked an ambulance during a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. And in December, a robotaxi drove just a few feet away from a Los Angeles police felony stop downtown after a chase.

During NBC6’s ride in January, spokesperson Mark said the company had “a tremendous amount of experience under us the last 16 years of development, the last five years of fully autonomous trips.”

“Safety is our number one priority,” he said. “We’ve done over 127 million fully autonomous miles. And in those miles we have seen 10x fewer serious injury crashes, 5x fewer injury crashes, 5x fewer crashes with airbags, and 5x fewer injuries with pedestrians.”