Waymo is giving us even more evidence that it’s widening its lead over Tesla in autonomous ride hailing, despite Elon Musk’s insistence that his company will catch up. The Alphabet-owned firm said Tuesday that its expansion into a bunch of new markets including Miami is underway. Waymo has removed the human safety driver from its cars in Miami and plans to do the same in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, Fla., in the coming weeks. It will start offering rides to the general public in all five cities in 2026. That’s on top of the five U.S. cities, including Phoenix and San Francisco, where Waymo already offers autonomous rides, as well as several other cities the company previously said are on the calendar for next year, such as Las Vegas and London. Waymo’s focus on expanding in Florida and Texas feels like something of a jab at Musk, whose hyping of Tesla’s robotaxi service has far outpaced its actual expansion. Currently, Tesla offers rides in Austin, Texas, and in San Francisco, but it has backup human drivers inside its vehicles in both cities. Musk said in recent weeks that Tesla hopes to remove the people from its vehicles in Austin by the end of this year, and Tesla said at its shareholder meeting earlier this month that Miami, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix and Las Vegas are the next cities where it’s aiming to launch a robotaxi service (assuming it can satisfy regulators). With today’s announcement, Waymo is now operating or getting ready to operate in every single one of those cities, plus more. #Auto Future waymo.com/blog/2025/11/sa..