Waymo plans Singapore robotaxi launch for 2028, after public rides began

Why it matters

Waymo is treating international expansion as a regulatory and workforce project with a long runway. Singapore will test whether its US operating model travels.

Waymo announced on September 17th that it intends to launch a fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in Singapore in 2028, working in partnership with the city-state's Ministry of Transport and Land Transport Authority. The plan gives co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana a two-year regulatory and operating buildout in a tightly regulated city where autonomous public rides already exist.

Waymo published its Singapore expansion plan on September 17th, and Singapore's Land Transport Authority confirmed the agreement on September 18th. The first all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles are expected to arrive in the coming months, followed by initial manual driving and readiness work during 2027. Public, fully autonomous rides through the Waymo app are targeted for 2028.

That schedule makes this a market-entry commitment rather than an active ride service. It also reflects the division of labor between Waymo's co-CEOs. Mawakana, a lawyer who led international teams at eBay, Yahoo and AOL before joining Waymo in 2017, is responsible for turning the Waymo Driver into a widely adopted commercial product. Dmitri Dolgov is a roboticist and founding member of Google's 2009 self-driving project, with earlier autonomous-vehicle work at Toyota and Stanford's DARPA Urban Challenge team.

Singapore will require both halves of that pairing. Waymo needs to prove its hardware and software can handle local roads, and Mawakana must fit the service into a transport system whose regulators are openly managing the effects on human drivers.

Two years of preparation before a paid ride

Waymo will begin with Jaguar I-PACEs equipped with the fifth-generation Waymo Driver. During the 2027 readiness phase, trained autonomous specialists will conduct initial manual driving to adapt the Waymo Driver to local road geometry and monsoon weather patterns, according to Waymo's announcement.

The sensor package combines lidar, radar and cameras, which Waymo says maintain a 360-degree view reaching as far as 300 meters. Waymo's Singapore page also claims 500,000 weekly trips and 94% fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers covering the same distances in the US cities where the service operates.

Those figures describe Waymo's US record. Singapore's 2027 readiness work will determine how well that record transfers to a dense left-driving city with tropical downpours, different road markings and a transport network built heavily around buses and rail.

Choosing the I-PACE keeps the initial work on a vehicle platform Waymo has already operated at commercial scale. Waymo's broader fleet is changing: RuntimeWire reported in August that shipping records indicated Waymo had imported roughly 3,200 Zeekr vans for its newer Ojai platform. Singapore will start with the familiar Jaguars and may add other vehicle platforms as the fleet grows.

Mawakana's regulatory bargain

Mawakana described the expansion as a commitment to listen to residents, create "high-skilled local operational jobs" and complement public transit. Singapore's government has attached a clear workforce condition to that welcome.

The Land Transport Authority's announcement said autonomous deployment will not be allowed to outpace the government's ability to retrain and support affected drivers. Singapore introduced a manpower transition package in July, and regulators said operators will be expected to help drivers acquire new skills and move into roles created by autonomous transport.

Singapore has made the labor bargain explicit. Waymo gains access to a compact, technically demanding market and a government willing to establish a path toward commercial driverless service. Waymo says it will establish local operations and create high-skilled local jobs, while Singapore's government says it will support affected drivers through retraining and transitions into new roles in the autonomous-vehicle sector.

That arrangement suits Mawakana's background. Her role at Waymo has centered on commercialization and the regulatory work required to move autonomous driving from a research program into a public service. Dolgov's technical organization can adapt the Driver, while Mawakana handles the institutions that decide whether it may carry paying passengers.

Singapore already has autonomous rides

Waymo will arrive behind local operators with vehicles already carrying members of the public. Grab and WeRide began public autonomous rides in the Punggol district on April 1st using GXR robotaxis and Robobus shuttles, initially with safety operators aboard.

Grab said on September 14th that the service had covered over 110,000 autonomous kilometers and served over 12,000 individual riders. Grab plans to expand the fleet from 10 to 50 vehicles over six months and broaden service beyond its current routes, subject to approval. Pony.ai also began Singapore autonomous-vehicle operations with ComfortDelGro in March.

Waymo therefore cannot claim the novelty of introducing Singaporeans to autonomous passenger vehicles. Its bet is that a commercial service backed by its own app, US operating history and fully driverless model will earn a larger role if regulators approve the 2028 launch.

The two-year runway gives competitors time to accumulate local driving data, train operators and build familiarity with riders. It gives Waymo time to avoid learning those lessons with paying passengers in the back seat. The timetable is cautious by product-launch standards and fast for a technology whose failures happen on public roads.

A $16B mandate to travel

Singapore follows Waymo's February financing, when Mawakana and Dolgov announced a $16B investment round at a $126B post-money valuation. Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital led the round. Alphabet remained the majority investor, with Andreessen Horowitz, Mubadala Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, T. Rowe Price and Singapore's Temasek among the named participants.

At the time of that round, Waymo said it was providing over 400,000 rides each week across six US metropolitan areas and had completed 15 million rides during 2025. Waymo's current Singapore page puts weekly volume above 500,000. Both figures are company-reported, though the increase helps explain why Mawakana and Dolgov are taking on the slower work of international regulation while Waymo continues adding US cities.

Singapore offers Waymo a controlled proving ground for that strategy. The city has national transport planning, established autonomous-vehicle rules and enough existing public deployment to move the discussion beyond demonstration rides. It also has a government prepared to slow the rollout if worker support and public trust fall behind.

Waymo has set the commercial target. Mawakana and Dolgov now have to show that the operation built around its American robotaxis can travel with the Driver.