Waymo taxis are about to be driverless on Denver streets

Those white Waymo vehicles you’ve been seeing cruise around Denver with a human in the driver’s seat? The human is about to go away.

Waymo announced July 7 that it will begin fully driverless operations in Denver in the coming weeks, removing the safety driver from behind the wheel and joining Las Vegas, San Diego and Tampa as the latest cities to get the full robotaxi experience. Denver is one of four new markets the company is adding to its driverless footprint as it pushes toward a goal of 1 million paid rides per week by the end of 2026. “We plan to go fully autonomous in the coming weeks and are working to open our doors to riders as quickly as possible,” a Waymo spokesperson told the Denver Post. The initial rides will be limited to Waymo employees before opening to the public later this year.

Waymo selected Denver last fall as one of its next launch cities, in part because of Colorado’s cold-weather conditions — a testing ground the company wanted alongside New York and Washington, D.C. Since arriving, Waymo’s vehicles have been mapping and driving Denver streets with a human at the wheel, logging months of data across select neighborhoods including RiNo, Baker and Cherry Creek. The company has said it eventually hopes to serve Denver International Airport. As of March, Waymo’s fleet has driven 220.6 million miles without a human driver nationally and says its vehicles have reduced crashes by up to 94 percent compared to human-driven cars in the cities where it operates. Three crash incidents involving automated driving systems have been reported in Colorado so far, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Denver will also see Waymo’s new Ojai vehicle — the first the company designed from the ground up rather than retrofitting a consumer car. The company is backed by $16 billion in capital and already offers public rides in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. For Denverites who want to be notified when rides open to the public, Waymo is directing people to download its app. For everyone else, the question is simple: are you ready to get in a car with no driver on Speer Boulevard at rush hour during a snowstorm?