Waymo is now averaging more than 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week across 15 U.S. cities, according to fleet data reported by TechCrunch, a tenfold increase from the roughly 50,000 weekly rides the Alphabet-owned company was providing in May 2024.
The expansion has been rapid. As of September 2024, Waymo operated in just three cities: Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It now runs commercial service in 15, with most of the additional launches, including Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, arriving in the past year alone.
A Fleet Concentrated in Two States
Despite the geographic spread, roughly 80% of Waymo's fleet of about 4,000 robotaxis remains concentrated in California and Texas. Texas has become a particular focus: the company's fleet there grew by nearly half in the past three weeks alone, according to state vehicle registrations reviewed by TechCrunch, reaching 1,102 registered autonomous vehicles as of September 24. Much of that growth is being driven by a new Chinese-built minivan — a modified Zeekr RT that Waymo has branded "Ojai" — that the company is counting on to help it scale even as tariffs push up costs, alongside its more familiar white Jaguar I-Pace SUVs.
Waymo, which spun out of Google and remains majority-owned by Alphabet, raised $16 billion in a funding round in February that valued the company at $126 billion, a war chest that has let it outspend independent rivals such as Wayve and Pony AI. Chief executive Tekedra Mawakana said in February that she expects Waymo to reach 1 million weekly paid rides by the end of the year, according to Sherwood News.
The scale-up has come alongside heightened regulatory attention. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has separately investigated Waymo over robotaxis passing stopped school buses and, following a January crash in which a Waymo vehicle struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school, over how the company's vehicles respond to children and pedestrians. In early July, NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison sent a letter to autonomous-vehicle developers, including Waymo, saying the agency had identified "a clear pattern" of driverless vehicles interfering with law enforcement and other first responders, and demanded solutions by the end of the month.
The growth has not gone unnoticed by ride-hailing incumbents. Waymo currently partners with Uber in cities including Austin and Atlanta, giving Uber riders access to Waymo vehicles through its app. But analysts at JPMorgan have projected that Waymo could capture 7% of the entire U.S. ride-share market by 2030, taking share directly from Uber and Lyft — an estimate the bank itself described as potentially conservative.
