Austin

Status

• Waymo has announced public service 2024

• Volkswagen is testing (commercial launch 2026?)

Waymo

"In Austin, we are currently testing fully autonomous rides across 43 square miles of the city, encompassing the heart of downtown, Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin, Hyde Park and more. At this stage of testing, we’re providing rides to Waymo employees before opening Waymo One to members of the public later this year. (2024)"

Source: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/03/scaling-waymo-one-safely-across-four-cities-this-year/

"Over the next few months, we’ll begin testing our fifth-generation driver, on the Jaguar I-PACE platform, across central and East Austin, including downtown, Rainey Street, Clarksville, Bouldin Creek, the Market District, Holly, and the Capitol."

Source: https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/expanding-waymos-testing-to-Austin.html

"For the past few months, our team tested in and around downtown in our all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles to reacquaint the generalizable Waymo Driver with the city. With this early testing successfully concluded, we’ll begin an initial phase of operations this fall, with fully autonomous deployment and our first rides with the public in the months following. We intend for our Austin operations to be a truly useful service from the start, traversing a large portion of the city night and day. The Waymo Driver will travel to many popular locations, like the heart of downtown, Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin, Hyde Park and more."

Source: https://waymo.com/blog/2023/08/waymo-one-heads-to-austin.html

Volkswagen

Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VWGoA) is starting its first autonomous vehicle test program in Austin beginning in July 2023. The company will kick off its program with a batch of 10 all-electric ID. Buzz vehicles outfitted with an autonomous driving (AD) technology platform developed by the global Volkswagen Group in partnership with technology company Mobileye.

Over the next three years, VWGoA plans to grow its test fleet in Austin and also progressively expand testing operations to at least four more American cities. Building upon investments throughout this initial pilot, VWGoA anticipates a commercial launch of autonomous driving vehicles in Austin by 2026.

Source: https://media.vw.com/en-us/releases/1750

More US cities will follow in the run-up to a commercial launch in 2026

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/6/23784813/vw-autonomous-vehicle-id-buzz-test-austin-mobileye