Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is Feb. 25 Valve's Steam Machine: Everything we know DoorDashers are getting paid to close Waymo's self-driving car doors The companies are running a pilot program in Atlanta. A few days ago, a Redditor posted in the community for DoorDash drivers that they received an offer to close a Waymo vehicle's door. The job paid a guaranteed fee of $6.25 with a $5 extra on top of it after the DoorDasher verifies that it has been completed. Waymo has confirmed to and that, yes, it is indeed paying Dashers to shut the doors of its self-driving cars. And it makes sense because, well, there's nobody to do it otherwise if a passenger accidentally leaves it open.

Stuck in regulatory limbo, the self-driving-vehicle developer is encouraging residents of Washington, DC, to message public officials to help get its robotaxis onto roads. Waymo needs some help, according to an email message the self-driving developer sent to residents of Washington, DC, on Thursday. For more than a year, Waymo has been pushing city officials to pass new regulations allowing its robotaxis to operate in the district. So far, self-driving cars can test in the city with humans behind the wheel, but cannot operate in driver-free mode. The Alphabet subsidiary--and its lobbyists--have asked local lawmakers, including Mayor Muriel Bower and members of the city council, to create new rules allowing the tech to go truly driverless on its public roads.

Valve's Steam Machine: Everything we know The company plans to offer rides to the public in Nashville sometime this year. Waymo has gotten a step closer to offering robotaxi rides to the public in Nashville, Tennessee. The company the city and making sure they can operate as fully autonomous rides before launching a paid service in the location. Waymo announced that it was planning to bring its robotaxis to Nashville in September 2025, with the intention opening up rides to the public sometime this year. The company has been testing its technology in Nashville since then, but it has yet say when it'll start accepting bookings for rides.

The company's robotaxi service is supposed to launch in the US capital this year. But while service rollouts have been relatively smooth in other cities, DC's rules have made things tricky. Waymo, the Alphabet subsidiary that develops self-driving vehicle tech, has picked up speed. The company now operates robotaxis in six cities and has announced plans to launch in a dozen others this year. It j ust raised $16 billion in a new round of funding and says it has served over 20 million rides since the company launched its service in 2020, 14 million of them in 2025 alone.

An National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation is examining Waymo after one of its self-driving cars struck a child in Santa Monica, California.

A Waymo vehicle pictured on January 15, 2026 in Austin, Texas. A Waymo vehicle pictured on January 15, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Welcome back to, TIME's new twice-weekly newsletter about AI. If you're reading this in your browser, why not subscribe to have the next one delivered straight to your inbox? On Wednesday night, I went to a press event in London hosted by the Google-owned robotaxi firm Waymo, which announced it was aiming to make driverless taxis available to Londoners by the fourth quarter of 2026. Even though Waymos have been driving autonomously in a handful of U.S. cities for years now, it's worth paying attention to what's going on in London.

The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it is opening an investigation after a Waymo self-driving vehicle struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California, last week, causing minor injuries and renewing concerns about the safety of robotaxis. The car safety agency said on Thursday that the child ran across the street on January 23 from behind a double-parked SUV towards the school and was struck by the Alphabet-unit Waymo autonomous vehicle during normal school drop-off hours. The agency said there were other children, a crossing guard, and several double-parked vehicles in the vicinity. The US Senate Commerce Committee had already scheduled a hearing on self-driving cars for February 4, which will include Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Pena. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) also said it will investigate the incident.

Waymo, the US driverless car firm, said it hopes to be operating a robotaxi service in London as soon as September this year. The UK government has said it plans to change regulations in the second half of 2026 to enable driverless taxis to operate in the city but has not given a specific date. Waymo said a pilot service will launch in April and Local Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said: We're supporting Waymo and other operators through our passenger pilots, and pro-innovation regulations to make self-driving cars a reality on British roads. The firm, which is owned by Google-parent Alphabet, showed off a fleet of cars it bought to the UK at London's Transport Museum on Wednesday. Waymo's vehicles are currently being operated by a safety driver, mapping the streets.

Research from the ride-hail aggregator Obi finds Waymo is starting to edge up on Uber and Lyft in San Francisco. Tesla, which operates a ride-hail service with human drivers, is winning the price wars. In San Francisco, people wanting to get from point A to point B have a few fairly unique options. Then, starting last fall, Bay Area denizens also got access to electric automaker Tesla's ride-hail service, which operates as a "robotaxi" in Texas but as a more traditional service, with drivers behind the wheel, in California. For months, the new and futuristic "robotaxi" services felt like a novelty .