It’s official, nobody’s behind the wheel of those Waymos in Denver anymore

If you’ve been doing double-takes at those white Jaguars with the spinning sensors on top, here’s the update that will either thrill you or keep you up at night: there’s officially no one driving them anymore.

Waymo confirmed this week that it has begun operating fully driverless vehicles on Denver streets, ditching the human safety specialist who had been sitting behind the wheel since the company’s Mile High launch in July 2025. The robotaxis, which are owned by Google parent company Alphabet and powered by what the company calls the “Waymo Driver,” have been making driverless trips since mid-July — though for now, only Waymo employees can ride in them. The rest of us will have to wait: the company says public rides are coming later this year but hasn’t nailed down a date.

Denver’s city agencies are still figuring out the rules in real time. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure says parking tickets will go to the registered vehicle owner. Colorado State Patrol says the Waymos are equipped to recognize lights and sirens, pull over and unlock so a trooper can communicate with a remote Waymo team through the car’s audio system. And since Colorado law doesn’t currently consider operating companies as “drivers,” no citation would be issued to Waymo itself in a traffic stop — which is a sentence that will make your brain hurt if you think about it too long.

The timing is especially fun given that one of the driverless Waymos got confused by Colfax Avenue construction this week and spent roughly an hour doing U-turns and weaving before construction workers had to put cones around it while they called for help.

Welcome to the future, Denver. It drives itself — except when it doesn’t.