Let’s start with the answer to likely your first question of when: Getting a ride in a Waymo car with no human driver starts “very soon” within the city of Denver.
Locals have been spotting the self-driving cars roaming around town since September, when the Google-adjacent driverless company began testing and collecting 3D data of the city’s streets. Some vehicles had a person in the driver’s seat but not driving (they’re paid by Waymo during testing). Some only had passengers. And some had no one at all but the car blended with road traffic as best as a car can with more than a dozen cameras and lidar sensors on top.
“Very soon we intend to open to the public here in Denver, but I don’t have an exact date,” said Chris Bonelli, Waymo’s product communications manager based in Detroit. He was in Denver this week and invited The Colorado Sun for a ride in the new Ojai, which stopped at stop signs, paused for pedestrians and parked on the correct side of a “No Parking” sign.
Dozens of new baby-blue electric Ojai vehicles (pronounced “oh-hi,” like the California city of Ojai Mesa “known for its tranquility and relaxation, which is what we want our riders to feel,” Bonelli said) have been shuttling around Waymo employees for more than a month. Frequently, the vehicles have no humans inside. Completely empty! That’s a sure sign Denver is closer to joining 11 other cities with service, with 20 more on the way.
First-time riders may be too giddy to have a relaxing experience because you’ll be too busy oohing and aahing, taking selfies and sharing your adventure or watching your ride on one of the three souped-up GPS screens, as I was during the ride around Washington Park. It was a working gig, though, so I collected more intel on Waymo’s rollout in Denver for readers.
Where will Waymo take me in Colorado?
Waymo plans to offer service throughout most, but not all, of Denver. It also appears to include a piece of Glendale, the little community engulfed by Denver. Here’s a map:
Waymo set the boundaries so the “couple dozen” vehicles in Denver can roam to the junction of U.S. 36 and Interstate 25 to the north to the tip of the University of Denver down south, and a jagged edge to that touches parts of Sheridan Boulevard on the west and to Central Park on the east.
Missing are the mountains, Denver International Airport and the rest of the state. That’ll come as the service grows because, technically, autonomous vehicles are already allowed in Colorado, Bonelli said. But the company is working with local authorities to make sure the rollout is safe and satisfying for customers.
“The initial service area is approximately 50 square miles,” he said. “Expansion will be very similar to other cities where we have what we call our ‘land and expand’ strategy. We land in a city, we get confidence and open initial operations in approximately a 50-square-mile area that usually covers most of downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. And over time, as you’ve seen in Phoenix and San Francisco, those service areas expand exponentially. Phoenix is now 350 square miles of service area.”
There’s no airport service yet, but Denver International Airport is “engaging in conversations with Waymo,” according to an airport spokesperson. The company will need to get a permit and register as a commercial operator, just like Lyft and Uber.
Currently, Waymo provides rides to airports in Phoenix, San Francisco and San Jose.
How soon can I get a Waymo ride?
While journalists got to hop in for a single trip this week, we are in line with everyone else who would like to get a lift at the push of a virtual button (the Waymo app is the only way to request a ride, he said). But Bonelli said folks who have signed up for the interest list or downloaded the app will be notified first — by email or in the app.
Based on what has happened in other cities, Denver is very close to launching. It took 13 months in Dallas from Waymo’s announcement to opening up service for anyone Aug. 4. Waymo’s entry in Denver was announced in September.
“When I say soon, I do mean soon, but I certainly don’t have a date to share today,” Bonelli said Tuesday during our ride.
The company is still preparing its operation depots, where vehicles get serviced, cleaned and charged in between rides. And they’re iterating on ride quality and navigation in the city.
“Every market is different because we are driven by safety,” he added. “We have stringent internal safety and rider quality statistics that we need to meet before we feel comfortable opening that service to the public.”
The plan is to have hundreds of Ojais in Colorado, he said.
How much does a Waymo ride cost?
Bonelli said the cost of a ride will be “comparable to other ride-hailing options.” It’s based on the time of day, demand and some other factors. Waymo has a set number of vehicles, and dynamic pricing is a way to manage demand.
“We do truly aim to be comparable, but it can vary,” he said. “Sometimes it’s cheaper, sometimes it’s more expensive. But never ask for tips … so that can really be the difference.”
The service always provides an estimate of trip costs for the most direct route, so unexpected re-routing doesn’t add to the cost.
According to RideWise, a rideshare price comparison tool, the average Waymo ride this year was $19.69, or 13% more than Uber and 27% more than Lyft. The difference could be tips. The price difference between Waymo and Uber shrunk to 12.7% in the first quarter, compared with 30%-40% in mid-2025, according to a RideWise analysis.
In June, the company unveiled Waymo Premier for customers who want to pay a little more for early access in new cities, prioritize getting picked up and five free cancellations a month (usually $4.99). It’s $29.99 a month.
What about the car’s tech?
The Ojai has multiple sensors, radar and 13 cameras that act as the eyes and ears. On top, the spinning lidar sensors see what’s near the car and farther away.
That’s more hardware than other companies have, like Tesla, which is operating robotaxis in Texas and Florida. Tesla has taken the stance that using lidar’s light detection sensors to determine how far objects are isn’t worth the expense since the vehicles already have multiple cameras.
Waymo’s big investment in hardware is further affirmation of its commitment to safety and acknowledgement that the service is a history-changing consumer transportation product.
And there is a driver, though not a human one sitting in a faraway office. It’s a computer, called Waymo Driver, that is tapping into years of computer training, machine learning and other data — the brain of the vehicle. Once known as the Google self-driving car project, Waymo is part of the Alphabet family so it has plenty of access to data.
Three touchscreens inside display the vehicle’s route, and also show all the moving objects nearby, from the differently shaped cars, buses and trucks to bicycles, dogs and people walking on parallel sidewalks. That’s thanks to lidar.
“In that screen, you can adjust your view of where you are in that 3D world that the Waymo Driver sees,” he said. “And we do that as a way to build trust with the riders in the technology, that it’s seeing above and beyond what you as a typical human will see. It’s tracking three vehicles ahead because of how tall the dome is on top.”
It’s also an all-weather vehicle, having been tested in snow, heavy rain and extreme weather conditions in various cities and that’s been fed into the Waymo Driver, now in its sixth generation.
In addition, he said, “Ojai was designed for snow, so a lot of the sensor pods have the ability to clean themselves and they have onboard heaters that make sure there’s no ice buildup and the sensors aren’t obstructed.”
What are the laws allowing self-driving vehicles in Colorado?
A Colorado law passed in 2017 paved the way for autonomous vehicles to operate in the state as long as the vehicles obey state and federal road rules. That means Waymo can drive anywhere in Colorado. The company set the launch boundaries and may expand based on customer demand and ability to meet safety goals.
Moving violations are handled by the Denver Police Department and none have been issued to Waymo, as far as Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Public Safety, could find. “Denver Fire has upcoming training with Waymo to mitigate instances of an autonomous vehicle impeding an emergency medical/fire response,” he said in an email.
“Waymo is responsible for the safe operation of its vehicles and must follow all road and curbside rules (posted and non-posted) the same as every other vehicle,” said Nancy Kuhn, spokesperson for Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.
This means the vehicles can get parking tickets like the rest of us.
Currently, Waymo only has an agreement to operate in the city of Denver, said Colorado State Patrol spokesperson Sherri Mendez.
If an officer was trying to get a Waymo to pull over, the vehicle is designed to recognize police sirens and lights and pull over, according to the company. However, law enforcement can pull a car over. But they can’t issue a citation, Mendez said.
“We have not ticketed a highly autonomous vehicle and would not be able to do so, as currently, Colorado law doesn’t include operating companies as ‘drivers,’ so no citation would be issued,” Mendez said in an email.
But are they safe?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires operators of self-driving vehicles to report crashes within 30 seconds. The data shows there have been more than 3,000 reports since 2021, with about two-thirds of them linked to Waymo, the most prolific robotaxi service.
But for the most part, the Waymo Driver wasn’t at fault.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released a new report last month that analyzed the NHTSA data. In two-thirds of the crashes involving an autonomous vehicle, the driverless cars weren’t the “striking vehicle or primary contributor to crashes.”
As legislation passed nearly a decade ago in Colorado to create a framework for autonomous vehicles, advocates liked to say driverless vehicles don’t drive drunk, distracted or fall asleep.
And that appears to be playing out.
Compared with human drivers, Waymo’s police-reported crash rates were 68% lower than humans in the same areas. The rate of rear-ending another vehicle was 91% lower for Waymo’s than humans, according to the report.
While the number of crashes reported to the police have risen as Waymo has expanded, the company’s overall crash rate shrunk between 2023 and 2024, the latest data available in the report.
Meanwhile, Waymo is up to a half-million rides per week.
As of March, Waymo vehicles have driven 220.6 million fully autonomous miles, provided 20 million rides and have had 94% fewer serious injury or worse crashes compared with human drivers. It keeps a scoreboard on a safety-impact page.
In Colorado, the NHTSA data logged one incident in the past year in Denver. In January, a Waymo vehicle traveling in a construction zone hit a parked pickup truck. But it wasn’t the machine that did it. A human driver in the Waymo turned off autonomous driving and was “maneuvering the Waymo AV closer to the curb, briefly accelerated forward, and then began braking,” according to the report. Before the crash, the Waymo was traveling 6 mph.
Can I take over the steering wheel?
Please don’t. The Ojai can sense when someone grabs the steering wheel “and actually work to counterbalance that to (prevent people) from steering the vehicle,” Bonelli said.
If someone does try to grab it or falls on the steering wheel, that sends an alert to the support team, which will audibly tell passengers to refrain. “If you were to continue to do that, they may pull the vehicle over and ask you to exit or maybe take action on your account,” he said.
The original concept car from China-based auto manufacturer Zeekr didn’t have a steering wheel. Waymo has the option to remove it, which would require an exemption from the National Highway administration. That would allow five passengers, instead of the current limit of four.
What happens in an accident or if the car stops?
Driverless cars face other challenges than human drivers.
A recent story in the New York Times mentioned Waymo’s “glitches.” Apparently, the cars haven’t perfected navigating congestion. After the July Fourth fireworks event in San Francisco, some of the robotaxies stopped, blocked traffic for hours and had to be towed after their batteries died. A few drove over exploding fireworks.
Waymo has on-the-ground crews in every operating area to handle such situations. They’ll disengage the autonomous system and switch it to manual operation and drive it from there.
There’s also a call button on the screen that connects to Waymo support, in case roadside assistance is needed. While there’s not a human monitoring each of the 3,500 cars, support staff will be alerted if something seems unusual, such as a car stopped too long with the door open. That is what happened during my ride. After Bonelli responded that we were OK, the disembodied voice apologized for interrupting our ride and wished us a good day.
What is it like?
For passengers, it starts with the app, where one can request a ride. Using Bluetooth, the vehicle sensed where Bonelli stood near the pickup point and drove right to him. The app also unlocks the Ojai and the two doors slid open.
The Ojais are customized for Waymo. They have a lot of leg room. It was immaculate — the cars are often cleaned between rides.
Stopping the car is tricky. You can use “add stop” in the app, but if you’re stopping for more than five minutes, Waymo advises you to take your stuff, and then request another ride to get you to your final stop.
“Familiar but different,” is how Bonelli describes the experience. My first ride in an autonomous vehicle, nearly a decade ago, stopped because of a tumbleweed. That didn’t happen on this trip. A few passing cars honked at us, though I’m not sure if that was in support of the technology or against it.
The ride from Alamo Placita Park to the southern edge of Washington Park and back was smooth and felt kind of slow (it drives the speed limit and makes complete stops at stop signs). But at the same time, it was quickly over. Maybe that’s because I was peppering Bonelli with questions and not paying enough attention to the actual ride. I can’t wait to ride an autonomous vehicle as a normal customer.