On May 28, 2026, Waymo announced that its first public riders were beginning to take trips in the Ojai, a new fully autonomous vehicle the company designed specifically for ride-hailing. Waymo described the Ojai as a “brand-new silhouette” intended to feel “less like a car and more like its namesake,” and said the public trials followed months of testing with employees.
The Ojai runs the 6th-generation Waymo Driver, the company’s autonomous-driving system. According to the announcement, the vehicle features a spacious cabin with elevator-like doors, a flat floor, and three large LED screens for rider customization, along with accessibility features such as embedded braille and screen-reader compatibility. Waymo said it is scaling toward tens of thousands of Ojai units per year from its factory in Mesa, Arizona.
The initial public rollout offers free rides to select riders in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, with planned expansion to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego before wider availability later in 2026. The launch marks the move of a purpose-built robotaxi from internal employee testing into real-world passenger service across multiple U.S. markets.
The Ojai represents a step beyond Waymo’s earlier fleets, which were built on retrofitted commercial vehicles such as the Jaguar I-PACE. Designing a vehicle around the ride-hailing experience, rather than adapting an existing car, signals a shift toward manufacturing autonomous vehicles at scale for commercial passenger transport.