Waymo targets Madrid robotaxi launch in 2027

Waymo plans to begin fully autonomous ride-hailing in Spain’s Region of Madrid in 2027, targeting its first passengers that year in what would be the company’s first deployment in the country.

Electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles are due to appear on streets in the Madrid region in the coming days with trained specialists at the wheel. The company’s rollout starts with manual driving and technical validation before autonomous operations, according to Waymo’s announcement.

Testing is expected to include Madrid City, Alcobendas and Getafe, and to run both day and night, typically around the clock. Waymo said the work will gather data and adapt its driving system to local road conditions, signage and traffic patterns.

The public-road testing will take place under guidelines set by Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic, or DGT, as well as other applicable regulations. The DGT’s ES-AV Programme is the national framework for testing automated and remotely driven vehicles before public-road service. It sets out controlled testing, extensive testing and pre-deployment phases, and can cover conventional driving used to collect data for later autonomous operation.

Waymo said it is working with national, regional and local authorities, introducing emergency services to its technology, and building local operations and partnerships ahead of the passenger launch. The company says it has completed more than 20 million trips and now provides hundreds of thousands of commercial rides weekly. It also says data from more than 400 million fully autonomous kilometres show a 95% lower rate of serious-injury-or-worse crashes than human drivers in the cities where it operates.

Spain’s autonomous-vehicle framework is already being used by another group. In September, the DGT issued WeRide, Uber and AVOMO the country’s first national Level 4 passenger-vehicle permit, allowing preparation work including mapping, route validation and readiness testing; their initial Greater Madrid deployment is planned to use 20 vehicles with an in-car specialist, with commercial operations expected by the end of 2026 subject to regulatory and operational milestones.