Waymo gets first permit to test autonomous vehicles in New York City

In August 2025, Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., obtained from the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) the first-ever permit to conduct autonomous vehicle testing in New York City. This decision represents a significant milestone in the development of automated transport technologies under metropolitan conditions, which are widely considered among the most complex in the world due to traffic dynamics and density of interactions.

According to the permit, the tests will take place in Lower Manhattan (below 112th Street) and Downtown Brooklyn, involving up to eight electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles. The program is scheduled to run until the end of September 2025, with the possibility of extension. Each vehicle will be supervised by a safety operator, in line with New York State legal requirements mandating the presence of a human able to assume control in emergency situations. Furthermore, city authorities have imposed obligations on Waymo to report operational data, attend regular consultations with NYC DOT, and comply with strict cybersecurity standards.

The safety context is of particular importance. According to NYC DOT data, in 2024 New York City recorded more than 100,000 traffic collisions, resulting in over 250 fatalities and more than 50,000 injuries. Analyses conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicate that 94% of crashes in the United States are caused by human error. Proponents of autonomous driving argue that consistent rule adherence by autonomous vehicles—such as the inability to run red lights or to drive under the influence of alcohol or fatigue—could translate into a measurable reduction in road casualties.

Critics of the program, including former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Transport Workers Union, highlight the unpredictability of New York’s traffic, concerns over potential job losses for drivers, and risks associated with testing in a densely populated urban environment.

Waymo’s entry into the New York market should therefore be understood as an experiment in testing the scalability and maturity of autonomous systems under extreme conditions. To date, Waymo’s fleet has accumulated over 20 million fully autonomous kilometers on public roads and has facilitated over one million commercial robotaxi rides in cities such as Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. However, New York—home to more than 8.5 million residents and characterized by exceptionally high traffic density—represents a testing environment of an entirely different order of complexity.

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