All posts tagged: Waymo

Waymo’s skyrocketing ridership in one chart

Waymo’s skyrocketing ridership in one chart

Published by skeptic

Waymo is now providing 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across 10 U.S. cities, the company shared in a post on X this week. The eye-popping figure is reflective of the Alphabet-owned company’s accelerated commercial expansion. But it’s Waymo’s rate of growth in ridership and markets that offers a more compelling story.  In less than two years, the company’s average weekly paid robotaxi trips have grown tenfold, from 50,000 per week in May 2024 to 500,000 per week today. Over that same two-year timespan, Waymo has expanded within its initial markets of Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — and beyond them to Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. Those seven cities in the Sun Belt were all added in just the past year. Waymo’s robotaxi fleet has also grown, although the company has guarded those numbers and rarely provides updates. Data provided in December 2025 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows the company had 3,067 robotaxis equipped with its 5th generation self-driving system. The company still uses that …

Former Uber CEO says Waymo ‘obviously’ ahead of Tesla in robotaxi race

Former Uber CEO says Waymo ‘obviously’ ahead of Tesla in robotaxi race

Published by skeptic

Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber who helped pioneer the ride-hailing industry, says Waymo is “obviously” ahead of Tesla in the robotaxi race, and that Elon Musk’s company needs a “ChatGPT moment” for its vision-based autonomous driving to catch up. The comments came during an appearance on the All-In podcast this week, where Kalanick also revealed he’s jumping back into the self-driving game himself with a new robotics venture called Atoms. Kalanick’s take on the robotaxi race Kalanick told the All-In hosts that Waymo has pulled ahead of Tesla as the two companies roll out autonomous vehicles across the US. He noted that Waymo’s key challenges going forward are “manufacturing and scale and urgency and fierceness”, not its core technology, which he views as proven. Tesla, on the other hand, is pursuing a fundamentally different approach. While Waymo’s vehicles rely on an expensive suite of cameras, lidar, and radar sensors, Tesla is betting everything on a vision-only system using the cameras already built into its EVs. Kalanick characterized this approach as chasing a “ChatGPT …

TechCrunch Mobility: Rivian’s R2 gambit

TechCrunch Mobility: Rivian’s R2 gambit

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for all things “future of transportation.” To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! I was out for a few days last week and we have a bit of catching up to do! I won’t rehash too much, but expect a few of the bigger news items — ahem, Wayve’s $1.2 billion raise — to make it in here.  One more housekeeping note: I will be in Austin next week for SXSW, the annual tech, music, film, and culture event that always attracts an interesting collection of tech founders, creators, politicians, and other industry folks. I plan to attend the Rivian event, where the company is expected to reveal full details of its upcoming R2 line. I will also be moderating a panel called Innovation & Impact: Female Leaders Transforming Legacy Industries, alongside Rivian CFO Claire McDonough, Madison Reed CEO and founder Amy Errett, and Spotify chief public affairs officer Dustee Jenkins. If you’re there, please reach out! Speaking of Rivian, …

Waymo Faces Mounting Scrutiny as NTSB Examines School Bus Incident

Waymo Faces Mounting Scrutiny as NTSB Examines School Bus Incident

Published by skeptic

Waymo, the self-driving ridesharing company, is mired in a growing number of safety incidents. While the company lately has been focused on launching in four new cities and transitioning to a new next-gen driving system, it faces a National Transportation Safety Board investigation over incidents in which vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses. Waymo is also contending with high-profile criticism after a viral video showed one of its robotaxis blocking an ambulance headed to the scene of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. And the company is answering to city leaders in San Francisco about an incident last year in which Waymo vehicles became unresponsive and stalled during a power outage in December. Waymo said in a blog post that it’s updating the robotaxi software to better handle power outages and make more decisive driving decisions during such incidents. A representative for Waymo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NTSB investigation is focused on incidents in Austin where the self-driving taxis are illegally passing stopped school buses. The NTSB cites in a report a Jan. 12 event …

Just three companies dominated the 9B in VC investments last month

Just three companies dominated the $189B in VC investments last month

Published by skeptic

AI continues to dominate the venture world, per a new Crunchbase report. A record $189 billion of global venture capital flowed to startups in February, according to the report. AI startups overall raised $171 billion, or 90% of the capital raised last month. It’s a stunning number that feels like only the start.  That record spending was more than three times the global VC spend in January and was dominated by mammoth funding rounds from just three companies: OpenAI, Anthropic, and Waymo. OpenAI’s latest $110 billion raise led the pack. It was one of the largest private rounds ever raised and valued the company at $730 billion. Its rival Anthropic nabbed a $30 billion Series G at a $380 billion valuation. Lastly, Waymo raised $16 billion at a valuation of $126 billion. These three companies alone were responsible for 83% of the venture dollars raised last month. The amount raised by just OpenAI, Anthropic, and Waymo last month was one-third of the total $425 billion venture spend in 2025, according to Crunchbase. Source link

Waymo Says It Has Nothing to Say After Its Self-Driving Taxi Blocked an Ambulance Responding to a Mass Shooting

Waymo Says It Has Nothing to Say After Its Self-Driving Taxi Blocked an Ambulance Responding to a Mass Shooting

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A Waymo robotaxi blocked an ambulance from responding to the scene of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, EMS and Waymo officials confirmed. “A driverless vehicle was stopped in the area while our crews were responding to this morning’s shooting, and it did briefly interfere with access for one ambulance,” Austin-Travis County EMS spokesperson Christa Stedman told Axios. “The officer in the video followed established protocol to address the situation and was able to quickly move the vehicle so ATCEMS units could proceed.” The Google-owned Waymo told outlets that it would not be providing a statement. In footage of the incident circulating online, a Waymo cab is seen straddling the width of a street, preventing an EMS vehicle with its lights flashing from passing. Instead of clearing a path, the cab fidgets in place, before the ambulance driver decides to reverse out and take a different route. After several minutes of indecisiveness — perhaps as it …

Podcast: Cybercab dead on arrival, Donut Lab’s miracle battery, Waymo expands, and more

Podcast: Cybercab dead on arrival, Donut Lab’s miracle battery, Waymo expands, and more

Published by skeptic

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Tesla’s Cybercab being dead on arrival, Donut Lab’s miracle battery, Waymo expanding, and more. The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in. After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps: Advertisement – scroll for more content We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming. Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast: Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET: FTC: We …

Waymo confirms it is ‘laying the groundwork’ in Chicago

Waymo confirms it is ‘laying the groundwork’ in Chicago

Published by skeptic

After Chicago residents began posting images of Waymo vehicles being unloaded on the city’s streets, the autonomous rideshare company confirmed it is exploring expanding its network to the Second City. However, an obstacle currently stands in the way of that deployment. Waymo continues to support the argument that it is the leader in autonomous rideshare capabilities in the US, despite Tesla’s claims. The Google subsidiary recently began deploying its 6th-generation “Driver” system on public roads. This latest system was designed with greater modularity to accommodate multiple EV platforms, such as the Zeekr-built “Ojai” EV and the Hyundai IONIQ 5 (part of an agreement announced earlier this month). Aside from expanding its proprietary technology, Waymo continues to expand its public reach into new US cities, though most remain in the testing and mapping stages. Yesterday, Waymo announced the start of public rides in four additional cities, including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. Meanwhile, up North, Waymo was apparently gearing up for testing in Chicago, and several onlookers snapped pictures and posted to social media. Advertisement …

Tesla lawsuits, Waymo expands, and the US goes nuclear

Tesla lawsuits, Waymo expands, and the US goes nuclear

Published by skeptic

On today’s high-dollar episode of Quick Charge, Tesla is reeling from a $243 million judgement against it in a high-profile wrongful death case involving the company’s Autopilot system, and has a hard time getting the relevant data to NHTSA. We’ve also got news that Waymo its expanding its L4 autonomous and driverless taxi operations into four new US cities across Florida and Texas, bringing its total to 10 compared to Tesla’s 0 total cities with driverless electric vehicles in operation. Plus: the US Air Force has deployed the world’s first portable 5MW nuclear reactor – which seems like the kind of thing we should all know about, you know? Source Links Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players. Advertisement – scroll for more content New episodes of Quick Charge are (allegedly) recorded several times per week, most weeks. We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage podcast …

Here’s How Many Remote Operators Waymo Has Per Self-Driving Taxi

Here’s How Many Remote Operators Waymo Has Per Self-Driving Taxi

Published by José Betancourt

Autonomous ride-hailing services companies have built their image on the concept that their vehicles fully drive themselves. The reality, however, is that the vehicles still require human intervention from remote operators, who are tasked with making critical decisions that the cars’ AI can’t safely navigate, like whether to abandon a blocked lane or what to do in an unexpected construction zone. We’ve known for years that Waymo still has to fall back on these agents on occasion — but details have remained extremely sparse, allowing conspiracy theories about the company’s fleet not being autonomous at all to flourish online, as Wired reports. Lawmakers at a Congressional hearing earlier this month weren’t impressed when Waymo’s chief safety officer, Mauricio Peña, declined to elaborate on how many “fleet response team” or “remote assistance” members the company employs, or even where exactly in the world they’re located. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) pointed out the liability and cybersecurity implications of “having people overseas influencing American vehicles.” In a blog post last week, Waymo’s VP and global head of operations …