Waymo announced in November 2025 that it was coming to Minneapolis. As of this month it's still testing here with human drivers, and it hasn't announced when passenger service will start.
The company runs a fleet of Jaguar I-Pace SUVs and Zeekr RT electric vehicles. It already operates in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta and plans to expand to 21 more cities. Each equipped Jaguar costs an estimated $150,000. Waymo's safety pitch is that its cars are involved in 94% fewer crashes causing serious injury or worse than the average human driver.
The big Minnesota question is winter. Rajesh Rajamani, a UMN mechanical engineering professor who studies autonomous vehicles, said buried lane lines matter less than you'd think. "The Waymo system uses lidar to localize, and so even if the lane lines are not visible, that by itself is not a problem," he said. He also pointed to a different weakness: "Sometimes something will go wrong, and the car might just get stuck in the middle of the road." Anyone who has seen a car stalled in a slush-filled intersection on University Avenue can picture how that would go.
Not everyone is sold. Joe Harrington, policy manager at the nonprofit Our Streets, argued that Waymo and other connected and autonomous vehicles are flashy and novel but don't offer much more than that.
The legal situation is murky. Minnesota law neither bans nor authorizes autonomous vehicles. In 2019 Gov. Tim Walz issued an executive order that created a council to study them. St. Paul's City Council is considering a study of its own.
Minneapolis has gone further. On October 1, the City Council voted 7-6 for an ordinance that would require robotaxi companies to get a city license and keep a human safety monitor inside the vehicle. Under the ordinance, monitors would need a valid driver's license and at least minimum wage, and the rules wouldn't take effect until October 2027. A Waymo spokesperson said the measure would limit the company's ability to operate in the city.
Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed it. "Requiring a driver in a driverless car doesn't make sense," Frey said. The ordinance's 7-6 vote fell short of the supermajority needed to override him.
So for now the robotaxis keep circling with a person in the driver's seat because Waymo chose to test that way, not because the city requires it. The real exam is still ahead: a first Minneapolis winter with nobody behind the wheel.
