Waymo plans to initiate autonomous vehicle testing in 10 new cities this year, commencing with Las Vegas and San Diego, according to The Verge. However, this does not necessarily imply that the company will launch commercial operations in any of these cities or test them in autonomous mode. Waymo informed The Verge that it will dispatch fewer than 10 autonomous vehicles (AVs) to each city, where they will be manually driven by human operators.

The news precedes Tesla’s 2024 fourth-quarter earnings call, where investors will be awaiting updates on the automaker’s robotaxi and self-driving initiatives.

Waymo is currently operating a commercial robotaxi service in three cities — Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — with plans to launch in Austin, Atlanta, and Miami this year.

The Alphabet-owned company has not confirmed whether it will launch a robotaxi service in any of the cities it tests in this year. Typically, Waymo sends a limited human-driven fleet to test across a broad range of city and driving conditions, with the aim of assessing how its system adapts to new environments.

In 2024, Waymo conducted vehicle testing in Michigan and upstate New York to test its technology in harsher winter conditions.