Waymo Opens Nation's Largest Robotaxi Depot in San Francisco
Waymo is scaling its urban operations by opening the nation's largest robotaxi depot in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood. The facility is designed for high-throughput maintenance, charging, and management of its growing autonomous vehicle fleet, signaling a move from testing to mature, large-scale deployment.
- The new Bayview depot supports a fleet that has grown substantially; as of August 2025, Waymo operated over 800 vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area, a sharp increase from the 300 reported just five months prior. - Waymo's San Francisco service became available 24/7 to the general public in June 2024, a major step in a multi-year progression that began with limited "Trusted Tester" rides in August 2021 and employee-only driverless rides in March 2022. - The company began fully autonomous testing on San Francisco freeways for employees in August 2024, aiming to cut down travel times significantly on routes like the one from Lake Merced to Oracle Park. - While the current fleet is composed of all-electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, the company is preparing to integrate its 6th-generation Waymo Driver system on new vehicle platforms, including custom-built robotaxis from Geely-owned Zeekr. - Amazon's Zoox is a key competitor in the city, having launched a free, waitlist-based service in November 2025 using custom-built, bidirectional vehicles without steering wheels. - The expansion in San Francisco is part of a broader national and global push, with public services already running in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin, and plans announced for international testing in cities like London and Tokyo. - Waymo's operations are a significant data-gathering effort, having logged over 20 million rider-only miles by mid-2024, which informs the continuous improvement of its AI-powered "Driver." - Underscoring its capital-intensive push to scale, Waymo's parent company, Alphabet, raised $16 billion for the unit in a February 2026 funding round, which valued the company at $126 billion.
