EVwire brief: Waymo has opened its fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Nashville to everyone, dropping the invite code that riders needed to book until now.
Anyone can now download the Waymo app and hail a driverless ride across the city right away, with no code required to skip the line.
Waymo celebrated the update on X, announcing that in Nashville, "the ride that never sleeps is now available to all":
Waymo began welcoming public riders in Nashville back in April, but only on an invitation-only basis. Riders downloaded the app and waited for their turn, and Waymo dropped access codes on its social channels so some could skip the line. Lifting the code requirement opens the service to the whole city in one step.
The service covers an initial 60-square-mile (155 km²) area that takes in Broadway's honky-tonks, the 12 South shops, Midtown, and East Nashville, and it runs around the clock. Waymo is also testing at Nashville International Airport and plans to serve travelers there.
Waymo began welcoming public riders in Nashville in April, but riders had to be invited to the service.
Context:
Waymo runs Nashville with its ride-hailing rival Lyft as the operations partner. Lyft's Flexdrive subsidiary manages the fleet, handling vehicle maintenance, charging, and depot operations.
The expansion lands days after Waymo's latest safety report, published June 24, which covered more than 220 million fully autonomous miles through March. Across those miles, Waymo logged 94% fewer crashes causing serious or fatal injuries and 82% fewer airbag-deployment crashes than human drivers in the same areas.
Nashville also joins markets like Miami and Orlando, where Waymo's US robotaxi network has already shed the invite gate.
Source: Waymo on X, Waymo blog post on Nashville launch
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