Waymo driverless taxis now available to everyone in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Starting Tuesday, anyone in San Francisco will be able to hail a ride with a Waymo driverless taxi. While the company has been operating in SF for a few years now, up until this week, service with the autonomous vehicle taxi company was limited to those who signed up for a waitlist.

Now users can simply download Waymo’s Waymo One app to hail a ride in a driverless Waymo taxi. According to a blog post on Waymo’s website, nearly 300,000 people have signed up to ride with Waymo since it first opened its waiting list.

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About 30% of Waymo rides in SF have been to local businesses, according to the company.

“We’ve provided thousands of rides to and from individual restaurants, live music venues, bars, coffee shops, ice cream parlors, parks, and museums, boosting the local economy,” Waymo said.

The service has been welcoming new riders into the service incrementally as it has scaled up.

Driverless Waymo’s have been a familiar sight on the streets of San Francisco for a few years now. However, there have been a number of incidents involving Waymos and Cruise, a competing autonomous taxi service operated by General Motors.

Waymo is operated by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

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