Waymo said on Sept. 14, 2026, that residents and visitors in Las Vegas can begin taking fully autonomous public trips on its robotaxi service, marking the Alphabet unit's first public rider open in Nevada.
The company says it will invite riders on a rolling basis after more than 100,000 people expressed interest. Independent coverage describes a start with dozens of Ojai minivans and a gradual unlock of access codes, a pattern Waymo has used in other cities.
Waymo places the initial service area from Boulder Junction up the Strip to Sahara Avenue and between the edge of Spring Valley and Winchester, about 24 miles of coverage. Las Vegas joins Denver and San Diego as cities where Waymo says Ojai fleets powered by the sixth-generation Waymo Driver will make up the majority of vehicles.
TechCrunch and Reuters treat Las Vegas as Waymo's 15th commercial robotaxi market and note that Zoox was already offering paid rides in the city. The Nevada Transportation Authority approved commercial robotaxi operations in Clark County; independent reporting says Waymo may operate up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles over the next year under that permit, alongside separate caps for Tesla and Uber partners.
Waymo cites a safety record claiming the Waymo Driver is involved in 94% fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes than human drivers over comparable distance. That figure is a company safety claim, not an independent regulator verdict on the Las Vegas launch.
What remains open is how fast invite-only access becomes citywide, whether Clark County can absorb overlapping robotaxi fleets without saturating corridors already shared with Zoox, and how Waymo's Ojai-led Strip service compares with airport-focused and other operator footprints already live in Las Vegas.