So far, Waymo is winning Super Bowl week.
The Google sister company, which offers cab rides in autonomous cars, announced Monday that it had raised a $16 billion funding round at a $126 billion valuation. Days later, Waymo executives urged U.S. Senators to pass legislation to accelerate the deployment of self-driving cars nationwide.
And sometime in between, one self-driving electric Jaguar pulled over on a San Francisco street to pick up Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp. “I wanted to experience being driven around without anybody driving,” Sapp said Monday. His review? “It was kind of funny.”
Waymo will take it.
By bringing Super Bowl 60 to the Bay Area, the NFL is showing up at the epicenter of U.S. tech development, where AI has minted a new crop of billionaires. Waymo might be the most visible of the region’s recent innovations, with cars driving themselves by billboards promoting other AI behemoths OpenAI and Anthropic.
Waymo began offering fully autonomous, robotaxi rides in San Francisco in late 2022, fully opening the fleet to the public in 2024. There are now roughly 1,000 cars operating. Last week, they expanded service to include San Francisco International airport ahead of the anticipated arrival of up to 1 million visitors for the Super Bowl. The onslaught of newcomers—along with the road closures that come with Super Bowl festivities—present a new test for the tech.
There has been some pushback against Waymo’s rollout, including roughly two dozen protesters in January upset following instances of malfunctioning cars and collisions. In one instance, the San Bruno (Calif.) Police Department complained after pulling over a Waymo for an illegal U-turn only to be unable to write a ticket because there was no human driver to punish.
For locals, the cars are an increasingly normal aspect of city life, just like the electric scooters and bike-share racks that have popped up around the country in recent years. Waymo, in written testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee, said its vehicles are involved in crashes causing serious injuries 10 times less frequently than human drivers covering the same mileage in the same conditions.
Waymo currently operates in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami and Phoenix, with 15 million rides in 2025. This year, it is expanding to 10 more cities, with hopes to deploy cars in Washington D.C. and London.
New England Patriots fans in town might not have to wait long before the cars arrive back home. Waymo announced Thursday that it is resuming testing in Boston with its sixth-generation model as the company awaits regulatory approval.
