Waymo communications manager Julia Ilina stands next to a Waymo driverless taxi in San Francisco, on Feb. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Robots are set to take the streets of Philly by storm, as residents may start seeing automated vehicles sharing the streets with cars and buses in Center City this summer.

This robot rollout will be part of Waymo’s “road trip” series, in which vehicles are tested on city streets to improve their driving capabilities. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says there are no immediate plans for an autonomous taxi service in Philly. 

The California-based company says that the vehicles will be tested with a human behind the wheel during training and will undergo additional testing in some of Philadelphia’s more challenging areas, like Center City and on highways, to improve the vehicles.

“Folks will see our vehicles driving at all hours throughout various neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, and from University City to as far east as the Delaware River,” a Waymo spokesperson said.

The company announced the Philadelphia testing on X, formerly Twitter, Monday.

Philly is not the only testing ground this summer. Waymo will be running similar tests in New York and parts of northern New Jersey. 

The company launched its driverless taxis in Phoenix five years ago and has since expanded to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Austin. Miami and Washington, D.C., are next on Waymo’s rollout schedule.

While a “road trip” is not a guarantee of a future full launch of the service, it has been part of the rollout in Los Angeles and other cities.

Philly’s history with robots

If Philly were to see the launch of Waymo taxis sometime in the future, they wouldn’t be the first autonomous vehicles in the city. In January 2024, Perrone Robotics launched a self-driving shuttle pilot in the Navy Yard, also with a human driver on hand. The shuttles drew resistance from some union members who raised safety concerns and worried about driver layoffs.

The Waymo announcement also drew Philadelphians to recall the fate of HitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, which saw its cross-country journey come to an end here in 2015. Some of them took to X to warn Waymo that its automated vehicles might be in jeopardy.

Job and safety concerns

Autonomous vehicles are, of course, a new technology and something that raises safety questions. In a 2025 survey by automotive services provider AAA, only 13% of U.S. drivers reported that they would trust a self-driving vehicle. That’s actually a drop, from 18%, in 2022. 

Yet data shows that Waymo and its autonomous vehicles are comparatively safe. A 2022 Swiss Re study found that over 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo vehicles resulted in nine property damage claims and two bodily injury claims. That compares to about 78 property damage claims and 26 bodily injury claims for the average human driver over a similar distance.

Still, pushback to Waymo’s launches stems from concerns that extend beyond safety, as critics worry about job displacement among taxi and rideshare drivers as driverless vehicles are introduced.

In New York, where there are more than 13,000 taxis, Waymo is petitioning to overturn a law forbidding autonomous vehicles. Philly only had 564 taxis as of October 2022, according to The Inquirer, and a 2018 study estimated the city had 25,000 ride-share drivers. That number is almost certainly higher today.

Davis Cuffe is an intern at Billy Penn at WHYY.