No Driver, No Problem: Autonomous Cars Coming to Minnesota Roads

If you spot a car cruising down a Minnesota road with no one in the driver’s seat, don’t worry—you’re not imagining things. Driverless, autonomous vehicles are on their way to the North Star State, ushering in a futuristic new era of transportation.

While we may not have those flying cars that science fiction writers once predicted would be common by 2025, but driverless, autonomous cars? Yeah, they're already here in select U.S. cities and could soon be on the roads here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, too.

Driverless Cars Could Be Hitting Minnesota Roads Soon

The high-tech ride-hailing company Waymo says it will conduct tests of its autonomous cars in Minneapolis soon, with the eventual goal of launching a fleet of driverless cars here in the North Star State. Waymo, which bills itself as the 'world’s first autonomous ride-hailing service,' was first started as a division of Google back in 2009.

Waymo currently operates driverless taxis in the following cities:

• Austin, TX
• Atlanta, GA
• Los Angeles, CA
• Phoenix, AZ
• San Francisco, CA

Along with Minneapolis, Waymo says it hopes to expand its autonomous taxis in 2026 to Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Waymo Is Bringing Its Autonomous Taxi Tests to Minneapolis

Here in Minnesota, this TechCrunch story says that Waymo will begin manually driving its robotaxis in Minneapolis in the 'coming days,' as the company tests and validates its driverless tech to see how it adapts to different road conditions found here in the winter here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

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MPR reported that the company previously tested its driverless tech in snowy conditions in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, as well as in upstate New York, and in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Fewer than 10 cars will take part in Waymo's testing process, MPR noted, with the company not divulging just how long the testing would take-- and when true driverless taxis could be tooling down the streets of Minneapolis.

Is Minnesota Ready for Safer, Driverless Roads?

And, if you're concerned about safety, Waymo says you don't need to worry, as its driverless technology actually makes roads safer in cities where it's already operating:

The data demonstrates that the Waymo Driver is better than humans at avoiding crashes that result in injuries — both of any severity and specifically serious ones — as well as those that lead to airbag deployments.

Specifically, Waymo says its driverless tech has produced the following statistics compared to 'an average human driver over the same distance':

• 91% fewer serious injury or worse crashes
• 79% fewer airbag deployment crashes
• 80% fewer injury-causing crashes

I don't know about you, but I've never ridden in an autonomous car-- and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to just yet. To see what it's like, check out the video below from March of this year, when Waymo first expanded its driverless taxi service to Atlanta, Georgia.

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