Nearly six months after announcing it was expanding to New Orleans, autonomous ride-hailing company Waymo has yet to debut driverless vehicles on Crescent City streets.
Though the white SUVs topped with spinning sensors and covered in cameras and radars have been spotted in New Orleans neighborhoods in recent months, company “specialists” are still behind the wheel and Waymo isn’t yet cleared to start picking up passengers.
“We need to hit the benchmarks set by our safety framework first and foremost,” said Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher. “Every city is different. The driving task is generally the same from place to place, but every city also has its own quirks.”
There’s no timeline for when the service will begin.
Before its fleet can start ferrying people around town, Waymo needs to clear several hurdles. The company needs to ensure its fleet can safely navigate Crescent City’s unique streetscape, complete with its notoriously unreliable traffic signals, wheel-engulfing potholes and erratic fellow road users.
Waymo also needs to obtain a certification from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, which a spokesperson for the state agency says it has yet to request.
Potentially further complicating Waymo’s plans to operate in New Orleans, the City Council is considering mandating that it obtain a city-issued permit — known as a certificate of public necessity and convenience — like those required for taxis, pedicabs and horse-drawn carriages.
“We’re not taking a position as far as whether or not Waymo can operate,” said at-large council member JP Morrell.
“What we’re looking at locally is drafting language that would include them like any other for-hire vehicle situation,” said Morrell, who has not drafted an ordinance yet. “It’s important to make sure the playing field is level whether there’s an automated driver or a real driver.”
The Waymo spokesperson said testing has gone as expected so far.
“Frankly, the only thing that could delay it is something like this proposal,” Teicher said.
Robotaxi rollout
The company first sent its cars to New Orleans in February 2025 as part of its “road trip” program, where a small number of cars scout out a city’s roads to evaluate how well its system can adapt to a new locale.
In November, Waymo officials announced the test run was a success and it planned to expand its service to New Orleans.
The testing in Louisiana follows a year of rapid expansion across the southeast for the Mountain View, California-based company. At the start of last year, its service was only available in three metro areas, all in California or Arizona.
Since March 2025, it has expanded to add Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Texas; Miami and Orlando, Florida; and Atlanta. Earlier this month, it began allowing the public to summon its cars in Nashville.
Pothole mapping
Alongside its recent expansion into the Southeast, Waymo announced a new partnership with the navigation app and fellow Alphabet subsidiary Waze intended to provide pothole detection data to cities and other transportation authorities.
Initially launched in five cities, the pothole pilot program is a byproduct of an existing practice.
“If you’re going to drive over a pothole, you want that rider experience to be smooth and comfortable, and so we’ve always collected data on potholes to improve the behavior of the Waymo Driver,” Teicher said, referring to the company’s autonomous driving software.
“And as we were collecting that data, we were also simultaneously hearing from cities that thought, ‘Hey, if you’re collecting this data, it would be really helpful to have it.’”
Under the new partnership, Waymo is supplying its pothole location data through Waze for Cities, a free platform already used by 2,000 government entities including New Orleans and the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority.
Mayor Helena Moreno has set an ambitious goal of filling 1,500 potholes per week. In the first quarter of 2026, her administration has filled 10,000 of them, she said Wednesday at a news conference marking her 100th day in office.
The city has a backlog of more than 2,800 pending pothole repair requests in its 311 system, with the average request remaining open for 724 days.
“I would argue that we already have an extensive pothole database,” Morrell said.
Teicher said Waymo will need to operate in New Orleans for a while before it can activate its pothole partnership and share their locations to Waze users and city officials.
