Self-driving cars aren’t yet permitted to operate in Virginia. But Alphabet-owned Waymo began transporting its cars to the state last week, a Waymo representative told Virginia officials, to map Arlington and Alexandria, in the northern part of the state.
For most autonomous vehicle companies, mapping, or the creation of sensor-aided and ultra-precise digital representations of streets and the features around them, is the first step required to launch a local robotaxi service. Drivers will operate the mapping vehicles for now, Waymo says.
Ethan Teicher, a spokesperson for Waymo, confirmed the move to WIRED and called it “an important preparatory step should the Commonwealth authorize fully autonomous ride-hailing.” Still, he said, the company does “not currently have plans for a commercial service there.”
In a public meeting last week with a Virginia Department of Transportation working group, Waymo policy adviser Rich Harrington said that Waymo vehicles had touched down in Alexandria and would soon come to Arlington, both just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. Moving from mapping to a full-blown robotaxi service takes 12 to 18 months and “a lot of money,” he told state government officials. Harrington said Waymo had briefed local officials before the move. (Ellen Kamilakis, a spokesperson for Virginia’s Department of Transportation, said the agency could not respond to WIRED’s request by press time.)
Virginia’s Autonomous Driving Work Group is working to understand how policymakers might craft regulations for autonomous vehicles in the state. The state Senate is currently considering a bill to create a path for autonomous vehicles to be licensed to carry paying passengers or cargo. Still, the law’s sponsor—state senator Saddam Salim—doesn’t expect it to allow self-driving cars to operate there before 2028, he told local publication Arlington Now.
The mapping effort is evidence of Waymo’s sprawling and global ambition—and a test of its lobbying might. The company is currently carrying paying passengers in 11 US metros and completing some 500,000 rides every week. It’s working to expand service to 20 more cities, including London and Tokyo. Twenty-seven US states currently permit the deployment of driverless taxis on public roads, with five more—including Virginia neighbor Washington, DC—allowing driverless testing.
But Waymo has also faced fierce opposition in a handful of mostly blue states and cities, where lawmakers and labor unions have fretted about the job impacts of driverless cars. The skepticism has extended to places around Virginia. A bill that would have authorized driverless car companies to carry passengers failed to pass through the Maryland state legislature last month. A DC bill that would allow autonomous vehicles on public roads but create unique permits and fees for them is under consideration by the city council. In 2025, Waymo announced its intent to launch service in Baltimore and DC, but a year on, timelines for those operations are still unclear.
Waymo’s existing services aren’t without their speed bumps. Last week, the company paused operations in cities across Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia, all of which faced storms and flooding. Earlier this month, the company recalled software related to its vehicles’ behavior on flooded roads, and said its ride-hailing service would temporarily avoid operating on flooded, high-speed roadways. The company is developing a “final remedy” for the issue, it told federal regulators.
Despite the setbacks, the company is “actively working” to bring its service to Washington, DC, Teicher said in a written statement, and it’s “continuing to lay the groundwork for a service in Baltimore.”
Eventually, maybe, laws could allow passengers to ride driverlessly through the entire DMV. For now, though, the cars’ presence, even driven manually, could have an upside for Waymo: getting its vehicles in front of national policymakers, who are currently considering laws that might ease rootaxis’ introduction in more places.
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