Self-driving cars

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Oct. 2 vetoed a City Council ordinance that would have required a paid human monitor in the driver's seat of every robotaxi ride starting in the city. The council members who wrote it say it protects the jobs of Minnesota's more than 10,000 rideshare drivers, while Frey called it "a back door ban." It is not yet clear whether the council will try again or write a different rule.

The U.S. Department of Transportation on Sept. 3, 2026, published America Leads, its national strategy for automated vehicles for fiscal years 2026-2030. It organizes the department's work on self-driving vehicles around safety, regulatory certainty, American innovation and interoperable travel corridors, but it is not a binding rule. Separately, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has begun a multi-year rewrite of its voluntary safety guidance for automated driving systems, last updated in 2017.

On Sept. 1, 2026, Waymo began welcoming first public riders in Denver, San Diego, and Tampa, saying that marks 14 cities with fully autonomous trips. Waymo says tens of thousands of people in each city have already signed up and that access will expand steadily toward opening the service to everyone.

Singapore's Land Transport Authority named Alphabet's Waymo the city-state's newest autonomous vehicle operator on Sept. 18, 2026, joining ComfortDelGro and Grab. Waymo's cars are expected in the next few months, trained specialists will drive them manually in 2027, and LTA and Waymo aim to start paid rides through the Waymo app in 2028, subject to safety reviews and approvals. The government says self-driving deployment will not outrun its ability to retrain and support affected drivers.

Waymo said on Sept. 14, 2026, that it has begun inviting public riders onto fully autonomous trips in Las Vegas, in a service area of about 24 miles running from Boulder Junction up the Strip. It will let more riders in over time after more than 100,000 people expressed interest, and it has not said when the service will open to everyone.

Tesla started offering driverless Cybercab rides in limited parts of Austin on Sept. 3, 2026. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened Audit Query AQ26002 the same day, announced Sept. 4, to examine how Tesla certified a vehicle with no steering wheel, pedals or mirrors. NHTSA has not said the Cybercab is unsafe; the audit reviews Tesla's certification paperwork, not crashes.

Amazon-owned Zoox began offering robotaxi rides to and from Las Vegas's Harry Reid International Airport on Sept. 3, 2026, with pickups at both passenger terminals. The rides build on a July exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that lets Zoox charge fares in up to 2,500 of its driverless vehicles a year for two years. Tesla, Uber and Waymo have also won permits to run robotaxi services in the Las Vegas area, according to a news report.