Waymo confirms Singapore as next international robotaxi market, targeting 2028 launch

Waymo picks Singapore

Waymo has confirmed Singapore as its next international robotaxi market. According to The Verge, the Alphabet-owned company plans to launch a public robotaxi service in the city-state in 2028, with vehicles set to start arriving over the coming months.

The rollout will happen in stages. The vehicles will first be used for mapping and for autonomous testing with human safety drivers behind the wheel in 2027. Waymo says it is then working toward offering fully autonomous ride-hailing to the public by 2028.

Regulatory approval comes first

None of this can happen until Singapore's regulators sign off. The Verge reports that Waymo will need approval from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) before it can begin accepting passengers. Singapore requires all autonomous vehicles to undergo a safety assessment at the Centre of Excellence for Testing and Research (CETRAN) before they can be deployed on public roads. Those tests were developed by the LTA and CETRAN, with input from the Traffic Police.

Waymo is not arriving as a complete outsider, though. According to The Verge, the company established a corporate entity in Singapore earlier this year and already sits on the country's Steering Committee on Autonomous Vehicles.

A city already testing autonomy

Singapore has built a reputation as an active location for autonomous vehicle work. The Verge notes that local authorities have approved autonomous freight delivery and road-sweepers, as well as self-driving buses that shuttle airport workers. Motional, a US-based company majority owned by Hyundai, ran a robotaxi pilot in Singapore back in 2016.

One stop in a wider overseas push

Singapore is the fourth international city Waymo has publicly put on its roadmap. According to The Verge, the company has said it plans to launch a robotaxi service in London by the end of 2026, followed by Tokyo in 2027. It also intends to bring robotaxis to Munich in late 2027, which would mark its first expansion into the European Union.

At home in the United States, Waymo has announced several new markets this year, including Nashville, Denver, San Diego and Las Vegas. The Verge reports the company runs roughly 4,000 vehicles across about 15 US cities.

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana praised Singapore's transportation system in a statement, saying the city-state has built one of the safest and most efficient ecosystems in the world, and that its priorities around reliability, sustainability and human-centric progress mirror how Waymo has built its own technology and service.

Why it matters

The Singapore announcement shows where Waymo sees friendlier terrain. As The Verge notes, regulatory hurdles and political opposition have kept the company out of some of the most important US markets, including New York City, Chicago and Washington, DC, even as the broader robotaxi debate continues across America. Overseas expansion is the clear answer.

Singapore in particular offers conditions that could make the path smoother: a single national regulator in the LTA, an established assessment framework at CETRAN, and a government that has already approved other autonomous vehicle use cases on public roads. If the 2028 timeline holds, Singapore would extend Waymo's driverless ambitions deeper into Asia, following the planned Tokyo launch, and offer another test of whether the company's playbook of mapping first, testing with safety drivers second and opening to the public last can reliably export beyond North America.