Waymo Plans To Have 20,000 Cars By The End Of 2027

Waymo plans to grow its fleet of driverless cars five-fold by the end of next year, Semafor reported.

Photo by: Waymo

By: Rob Stumpf

Oct 20, at 2:55pm ET

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Waymo's fleet of driverless cars could soon get a major boost.
A new report says that Waymo could be looking to increase its fleet five-fold by the end of 2027.
That means moving from 4,000 cars to 20,000 in just 14 months.

The robotaxi race is on. While there are quite a few players in the running, the clear leader in the U.S. is Alphabet's Waymo. The company is apparently getting ready to kick things up a notch.

Waymo aims to quintuple its fleet from roughly 4,000 cars today to 20,000 by the end of 2027, Semafor reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the plans. The company reportedly wants to grow its fleet to 8,000 vehicles by close of 2026.

Photo by: Lyft

We have an idea of where Waymo is getting the money to fund this inevitably expensive endeavor. Last month, it locked in$5 billion in debt financing which it said it will use to "accelerate the continued expansion of our fully autonomous ride-hailing service across the United States and internationally."

Expanding means more than just buying up more Zeekr vans and outfitting them with computers and sensors. Waymo also needs teleoperators to steer remotely cars when they create a traffic jam, plus the infrastructure and operational might to operate a taxi service. Think folks back at the depots who vacuum the cars and plug them in to charge. Not everything is autonomous, after all.

Waymo has been steadily expanding its fleet of cars and the areas it operates in throughout 2026. As of September, Waymo was serving 15 major cities across eight states, making it by far America's most significant robotaxi operator. Waymo averages upwards of a half-million paid rides every single week. It's also testing services in London and Tokyo, with expansion announced for Canada, Singapore, and Spain.

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To grow service in existing locations and expand to new ones, Waymo will need to scale its fleet considerably with help from partners like Hyundai and Geely. Hyundai recently said that it plans to make "tens of thousands" of Ioniq 5 robotaxis for Waymo, while Geely-owned Zeekr's boxy Ojai people movers have also started rolling out in three cities.

Tesla, by contrast, only started autonomous rides last year and isn't close to matching Waymo's current scale. If Waymo does manage to quintuple its driverless fleet in roughly the next year, the gap between it and the rest of the pack could grow even greater.