Waymo Now Also Available for German Visitors to the US

In recent years, foreign visitors to San Francisco could be recognized primarily by the way they stood at intersections, dumbfounded and open-mouthed, eagerly filming the driverless Waymos. Cars without drivers! This challenged their self-image, while San Franciscans took it in stride. For the latter, it was everyday life.

The only downside for tourists was that they couldn’t ride in the robotaxis without help from locals. Until now, it was only possible to download and use the Waymo app—and thus order a robotaxi—if you had a cell phone with US App Store settings, a US credit card, and a US phone number. Some people bent their second cell phones, got a US number on Google and a US credit card on Paypal, or used Apple Pay. Or they used Uber in Atlanta or Austin, where Waymo is integrated into the Uber service. But that has now changed.

According to automotive expert Christian Walter, all you need now is a German cell phone with access to the German App Store, a German credit card, a German phone number, and, of course, network access to order and use a Waymo robot taxi in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or anywhere else in the US where Waymo is already available to the public (see the current overview here).

This does not seem to apply to all countries (yet?). The Waymo app was not available on the Swiss iPhone App Store, and it was not possible to use Waymo with a Swiss phone number or credit card.

And the Waymo app itself has also already been translated into German.

Call for action! For which other countries and their users is Waymo in the US also already available?

Post Scriptum

And so that no one can say we discriminate based on gender, here is the female version:

This article was also published in German.