Waymo's robotaxi fleet is concentrating in California and Texas

Waymo’s robotaxi expansion looks broad on paper: the company has gone from operating in three U.S. cities — Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — in September 2024 to 15 cities today, with most of that growth arriving in the past year. Weekly ridership has climbed alongside it, and Waymo — which spun out of Google and remains majority-owned by Alphabet — now averages 500,000 paid robotaxi rides a week.

But a closer look at the roughly 4,000-vehicle fleet shows heavy concentration in just two states. About 80% of Waymo’s robotaxis operate in California and Texas, and Texas is currently the most active market: the state fleet has grown by nearly half in the past three weeks, driven by a new Chinese-built minivan Waymo is betting on for scale even as tariffs push up its costs. The remaining roughly 800 vehicles are spread across other states, including Arizona and Florida, another fast-growing market. Most of the fleet is the familiar white Jaguar I-Pace electric SUV, but a growing share is the new minivan — a modified Zeekr RT the company has branded “Ojai.”

Waymo’s California concentration is unsurprising, given its Silicon Valley headquarters and early testing there. The Texas growth is more notable: according to state vehicle registrations and the Texas Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Tracker, Waymo’s Texas fleet grew 49% in the past three weeks, reaching 1,102 registered autonomous vehicles as of September 24. Waymo first launched commercial service in Austin in March 2025 through a partnership with Uber, later expanding to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. The Texas fleet held roughly steady over the summer — inching from about 600 vehicles in June to more than 700 by the end of August — before surging in September on an influx of new Ojai minivans, which now make up about a third of the state fleet.

The Ojai is built on Zeekr’s SEA-M platform, a shared vehicle architecture designed for uses like robotaxis and delivery vans; Zeekr is a brand of China’s Geely Holding Group, which also owns Volvo. Base vehicles ship to the U.S. without Chinese connected-car technology, then go to Waymo’s Arizona factory to be fitted with its sixth-generation self-driving system and Google’s Gemini AI as an in-car assistant. The vehicle is meant to help Waymo cut costs and reach profitability, though tariffs on Chinese-built vehicles are currently eating into any savings. Research firm MoffettNathanson, which tracks Ojai imports through shipping records, said in its September report that Waymo is on track to bring 5,100 of the vehicles into the U.S. by the end of the year — with Texas, Florida, and newer markets like Las Vegas likely destinations.

Why it matters

Waymo’s expansion is really a bet concentrated in two states rather than a nationwide rollout, and its reliance on a tariff-exposed, Chinese-built vehicle to hit that scale shows how trade policy is shaping even the most domestic-facing corners of the AV business.