There's something almost comically cautious about Waymo's latest move in the autonomous vehicle arena. The Alphabet-owned company just announced it's bringing its robotaxi testing to Denver and Seattle—but don't get too excited. Human drivers will still be white-knuckling the steering wheel throughout the test phase.
An "autonomous" vehicle with a human driver is about as logical as a "self-cleaning" oven that requires you to scrub it yourself. But this contradiction perfectly encapsulates Waymo's approach to the driverless future—methodical to the point of seeming almost old-fashioned.
I've been tracking autonomous vehicle deployments since 2018, and what strikes me most about Waymo isn't their technology (impressive as it is) but their strategic patience. While competitors race to grab headlines, Waymo is inching forward with the deliberate pace of a company that can afford to play the long game—because they can, quite literally, afford it.
The expansion adds Denver and Seattle to an already impressive constellation that includes Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Look at that list closely. It's not random. Each city presents unique challenges: Phoenix's brutal heat, San Francisco's hills and fog, Atlanta's sprawling expressways. And now they're tackling Denver's snow and Seattle's notorious rain.
They're not just building a robotaxi service; they're building an operational playbook.
"Waymo is essentially creating a nationwide operational capability through city-by-city market entry," explained Marcus Thompson, transportation analyst at Meridian Research, when I spoke with him yesterday. "It's more akin to how traditional transport companies expanded in the 20th century than how tech companies typically scale."
This unhurried approach feels almost rebellious in Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" culture. Waymo seems content to move deliberately and break... well, nothing. (An admirable goal when you're piloting two-ton vehicles through crowded city streets.)
The choice of Denver and Seattle is particularly telling. These aren't easy markets. The weather alone presents significant technical challenges for sensors and decision-making systems. It's as if Waymo is deliberately seeking out difficult conditions—not to move quickly, but to build institutional knowledge that competitors can't easily replicate.
Meanwhile, the competitive landscape keeps shifting. Baidu's Apollo Go is scaling rapidly in China's densely packed urban centers. Tesla continues making grand promises about Full Self-Driving while securing limited commercial deployment permits in Texas. Cruise's operations remain paused after incidents in San Francisco raised serious safety questions.
But here's what many observers miss: the autonomous vehicle race isn't primarily about technology anymore—it's about operational resilience and capital runway.
And speaking of capital—this stuff ain't cheap.
The dozen test vehicles being deployed in each new city represent millions in investment, not counting the operational infrastructure, mapping efforts, and regulatory navigation required. Having Alphabet's deep pockets behind them gives Waymo an advantage that can't be overstated.
(I still remember a 2019 conference where a startup founder told me, half-jokingly, that the autonomous vehicle industry was just "a competition to see who can burn the most cash without running out." He's no longer in business, incidentally.)
What fascinates me about Waymo's model is how they're simultaneously running different experiments in different markets. In some cities, you can hail a Waymo through the Uber app; in others, you use Waymo's standalone application. They're deploying both Jaguar iPace and Geely Zeekr vehicles—hedging their bets on hardware platforms.
This isn't the approach of a company that thinks it has all the answers. It's the approach of one that's systematically working through all the questions.
The historical parallel that keeps coming to mind is commercial aviation's early days. The airlines that ultimately dominated weren't necessarily those with the most advanced aircraft, but those who mastered route economics, operational safety, and customer experience—the unglamorous fundamentals that actually build sustainable businesses.
Will this slow-and-steady strategy pay off? The capital markets aren't known for their patience. But then again, Waymo has the luxury of a parent company with nearly unlimited resources and a history of making decades-long bets on emerging technologies.
For now, those human safety drivers will keep their hands hovering near the steering wheel—a daily reminder that the autonomous future remains stubbornly just out of reach. But with each new city, Waymo builds another piece of the operational foundation that might eventually support a nationwide driverless network.
In the race between the autonomous tortoise and hare, Waymo seems perfectly content wearing the shell.
