Singapore now has a Waymo date on the calendar: 2028. New York City, Chicago and Washington, DC still have none.
That contrast says more about the state of the robotaxi business than any milestone announcement does. The Alphabet-owned firm plans to open a commercial robotaxi service in Singapore in 2028, planting yet another foreign flag on a map that is filling in faster overseas than it is at home.
The timeline is slower than the headline suggests
By the company’s account, vehicles begin landing in Singapore over “the coming months.” Mapping and autonomous testing follow in 2027, with human safety drivers still behind the wheel. Only once that is done does Waymo describe itself as “working toward offering fully autonomous ride-hailing to the public” by 2028.
Call it roughly two years of groundwork before the first paying passenger climbs in. Anyone treating the announcement as a launch should reset the clock.
Singapore gets to say no
Before it can carry passengers, Waymo needs sign-off from Singapore’s Land Transport Authority. Every autonomous vehicle in the city-state must first clear a safety assessment at the Centre of Excellence for Testing and Research, better known as CETRAN, before it is allowed onto a public road.
The LTA and CETRAN designed those tests with input from the Traffic Police. The bar sits higher than what most US jurisdictions require, and it is the piece of this plan Waymo controls least.
The company is not showing up cold, however. It established a corporate entity in Singapore earlier this year and holds a seat on the country’s Steering Committee on Autonomous Vehicles.
It’s crowded ground already
For years Singapore has worked to position itself as a proving ground for the technology. Authorities there have already approved autonomous freight delivery and road-sweepers, along with self-driving buses ferrying airport workers.
Nor is Waymo the first robotaxi operator to take a swing at the market. Motional, the US company majority owned by Hyundai, ran a robotaxi pilot there as far back as 2016. Ten years on, no one operates a commercial service.
The overseas list keeps growing
Singapore takes a place in line. Waymo has previously said it aims to launch in London by the close of 2026 and in Tokyo in 2027, and it intends to bring robotaxis to Munich, Germany, in late 2027 — its first move into the European Union.
“Singapore has built one of the safest, most efficient, and most forward-thinking transportation ecosystems in the world,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a statement. “Their focus on reliability, sustainability, and human-centric progress directly mirrors how we have built Waymo’s technology and service.”
Where the cars actually are right now
At home, the company unveiled several new markets this year, Nashville, Denver, San Diego and Las Vegas among them. Its fleet numbers roughly 4,000 vehicles spread across about 15 US cities.
Yet a mix of regulatory friction and political resistance has shut it out of some of the country’s most significant ones. As that battle grinds on stateside, Waymo has made clear it plans to keep expanding abroad, with no indication it intends to ease off.
Keep an eye on the CETRAN assessment in 2027. That is the checkpoint that determines whether 2028 turns out to be a launch date or just a press release.