Waymo opens talks on driverless taxi service in Raleigh and Durham

Waymo has begun discussions with local officials about bringing its driverless taxi service to Raleigh and Durham, signalling a new but still preliminary push into North Carolina’s Research Triangle. The company has not identified the governments involved or announced a launch date for either city.

Rich Harrington, a Waymo policy adviser, disclosed the talks at the N.C. Department of Transportation’s annual Transportation Summit in Raleigh. “We’re not just excited about Charlotte,” he said. “We’re also excited about Raleigh and the Research Triangle, and we’re in active conversations with localities there to make that happen.”

The discussions mark a change from December 2025, when Waymo said it had not engaged city or state officials about operating in North Carolina. It had, however, held what was described as a very preliminary conversation with Raleigh roughly two years before that report.

Any Triangle service remains less advanced than Waymo’s plans for Charlotte, which is expected to be the company’s North Carolina debut, likely by late 2027. Waymo has digitally mapped its intended Charlotte operating area and begun testing self-driving vehicles with human occupants behind the wheel. Its initial service area is to cover and surround the city’s uptown core before expanding gradually.

North Carolina’s 2017 law generally prevents cities and counties from creating rules specifically regulating autonomous vehicles, while imposing vehicle, registration, insurance and federal-compliance requirements. It also requires a vehicle to reach a reasonably safe complete stop if a failure prevents it from performing the driving task.

The Triangle interest follows an earlier, unsuccessful local effort by Cruise, which began mapping Raleigh and Charlotte streets in 2023 before suspending operations amid safety concerns. General Motors subsequently halted funding for Cruise’s robotaxi business and absorbed the company.

Waymo, an Alphabet subsidiary, says it operates in 15 US cities and has announced 18 further locations, including Charlotte as well as London and Tokyo. Harrington said the company had accumulated 270 million miles of fully autonomous driving and claimed a 92% reduction in serious crashes against human drivers in the same cities.