Robotaxis in 2026: who is driverless, where.
Robotaxis stopped being a science project in 2026. Waymo runs about 500,000 paid driverless rides a week across 15 US metros, Tesla's Cybercab is carrying passengers in Austin, Zoox is charging fares in Las Vegas, and Chinese operators Pony.ai, WeRide and Baidu are driverless in several cities and expanding into the Middle East and Europe.
Waymo, Tesla, Zoox and the rest, city by city.
"Driverless" means paying passengers with nobody behind the wheel. "Limited" and "Supervised" mean a safety operator is still aboard in at least some cities.
Waymo
The clear leader: fully driverless, paid, and doubling ridership in under a year. Denver, San Diego and Tampa opened Sept 1, 2026; Las Vegas Sept 14; San Antonio resumed Sept 17. Freeway driving and airport service now live in multiple cities.
Apollo Go
More than 23 million cumulative rides, the most of any operator. Launched in Dubai in March 2026 and on Uber there from Aug 20. Ride volume dipped in Q2 2026 as pricing and competition shifted.
Zoox
Paid rides in Las Vegas since Aug 10, 2026 and airport service since Sept 3. The only operator running a vehicle with no steering wheel at scale in the US. Houston and San Diego announced Sept 1, 2026.
Pony.ai
Fully driverless paid service in three Chinese megacities since November 2025, and the most aggressive international expansion: Zagreb driverless test rides from Sept 10, 2026, Doha and Singapore with safety operators.
Tesla Robotaxi
Vision-only, no lidar. Some cars run unsupervised (Miami since July 3, 2026; Orlando and Tampa since July 21); the Bay Area still requires a safety driver. The purpose-built Cybercab began carrying riders in Austin on Sept 4, 2026. Scale is the open question.
WeRide
The first operator running fully driverless commercial rides in the Middle East: Abu Dhabi since November 2025 and Dubai since March 31, 2026, both on Uber.
Wayve
End-to-end AI driving with no HD maps, launched on Uber in London on Sept 3, 2026 with safety drivers. Its embodied-AI approach licenses to automakers including Nissan.
Nuro
Pivoted from delivery pods to licensing its driver. The Uber-Lucid-Nuro robotaxi program targets a public San Francisco launch in late 2026 and Houston in mid-2027.
May Mobility
Focused on smaller cities, campuses and transit partnerships, with operators aboard. Lyft partnership in Atlanta is its largest US deployment.
Mobileye
Supplies driver-assistance chips to most automakers; its Mobileye Drive robotaxi stack launches with Volkswagen's ID. Buzz in the US in 2027.
Avride
Dallas robotaxi service on Uber with safety operators; an NHTSA preliminary evaluation (PE26003) is open.
Motional
Relaunched in Las Vegas after a 2024 pause; fully driverless service targeted for the end of 2026.
Cruise
Shut down in December 2024 after a 2023 pedestrian incident; GM folded the technology into personal-vehicle Super Cruise and has not restarted a robotaxi business.
Consumer driver assistance: Tesla FSD, Super Cruise, BlueCruise, Drive Pilot.
The systems you can buy today, from hands-off highway driving to the first certified eyes-off Level 3.
| System | Maker | Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla FSD (Supervised) v14 | Tesla | Level 2 (hands-off, eyes-on) | Vision-only, end-to-end neural network; the most widely used highway-and-city driver-assist system. Unsupervised operation limited to robotaxi fleets. |
| Super Cruise | General Motors | Level 2 hands-free (mapped roads) | 750,000+ miles of mapped highways in North America; absorbed Cruise's technology team. |
| BlueCruise | Ford | Level 2 hands-free (mapped roads) | Hands-free on 130,000+ miles of highways in the US and Canada. |
| Drive Pilot | Mercedes-Benz | Level 3 (eyes-off, conditional) | First certified Level 3 system in the US (California, Nevada) and Germany; up to 95 km/h in Germany. |
| Xpeng XNGP / Huawei ADS 4 | XPeng / Huawei | Level 2+ city navigation | City-wide navigate-on-autopilot across China; Huawei ADS is shipping in dozens of models from multiple brands. |
Latest from the road.
Robotaxi status, October 2026: Waymo, Tesla and Zoox
Waymo at ~500,000 paid rides a week across 15 metros; Tesla unsupervised in Florida; Zoox paid in Las Vegas.
The Charge Port →Waymo and Zoox expand into more U.S. markets as robotaxi race heats up
Denver, San Diego and Tampa go live for Waymo; Zoox announces Houston and San Diego.
CNBC →Waymo's skyrocketing ridership in one chart
Weekly rides doubled in under a year as Waymo added freeways, airports and new cities.
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