Waymo starts autonomous Pittsburgh testing with safety driver

Waymo Senior Director Euan Guttridge said on September 18 that the company is now driving fully autonomously in Pittsburgh with a safety technician behind the wheel, after PennDOT authorized autonomous testing in February while vehicles were still in the manual-driving phase that began in December 2025. Guttridge, speaking around Pittsburgh's AI Horizons Summit, described mapping downtown and a bit beyond, then hundreds of thousands of miles of testing before trusted testers and a later public opening. Waymo has not received Pennsylvania permission to operate without a person in the driver's seat and has not set a commercial robotaxi launch date.