It’s not even close anymore. Google’s Waymo, long thought to be one of the leaders in the self-driving space, is now clearly the leader. Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana announced today that Waymo has just surpassed 100,000 paid autonomous trips per week.
Tesla, which first unveiled a “robotaxi” plan for a self-driving ride-sharing network in 2019, now says it will share its plans in October of this year. And General Motors, which just laid off over 1,000 software developers, might start charging for self-driving rides in 2025.
Waymo currently operates in just three cities, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, but plans to add Austin “soon,” so that 100,000 paid rides per week might soon grow significantly. The company regularly adds new regions surrounding the cities it operates in as well.
Just yesterday the company unveiled the sixth generation of its self-driving technology, called Waymo Driver. The new version requires fewer sensors than before, reducing cost, but still uses 13 cameras, four lidar, six radar, plus external audio receivers. That sensor suite, the company says, provides Waymo Driver with overlapping fields of view all around the vehicle to up to 500 meters away.
“Our current system allows us to provide safe and reliable service to riders in the cities where we operate, even in extreme heat, fog, rain, and hail,” the company’s VP of engineering, Satish Jeyachandran, recently said.
Waymo Driver in action in a Zeekr electric vehicle.
Tesla, on the other hand, has attempted to achieve self-driving using only vision technology with far fewer cameras. GM’s Cruise uses cameras, radar, and lidar.
Some projections have valued a functioning robotaxi empire at more than $5 trillion by 2029, so the race to achieve safe autonomous driving has massive financial ramifications. That could boost Alphabet (the parent company of both Google and Waymo) to huge new stock market valuations.
And if Tesla’s soon-to-be-announced robotaxi doesn’t quickly succeed, it could also be a weight on the car company’s valuation, which is already down 11% year-to-date.