Waymo Achieves Milestone of Delivering 100,000 Robotaxi Journeys Each Week

Waymo announced on Tuesday that its robotaxi service is currently facilitating over 100,000 paid rides weekly in its top three operational areas: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix.

Waymo’s co-CEO, Tekedra Mawakana, revealed this statistic in a post on X. This number signifies a milestone, doubling the previously reported figures. During an earnings call this past summer, Alphabet and Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, pointed out that Waymo was providing slightly above 50,000 paid journeys each week—an achievement also highlighted in a June blog entry.

The accomplishment comes with Waymo utilizing hundreds of electric Jaguar I-Pace cars that operate entirely autonomously. Although the exact size of Waymo’s fleet is not publicly known, a Freedom of Information Act inquiry directed at the California Department of Revenue disclosed that Waymo has a fleet of 778 robotaxis permitted for operation within the state. There’s some ambiguity regarding whether any of these vehicles are active in Phoenix.

Phoenix has been a key area for Waymo, and it’s an area where the company is continuously expanding its presence. Nonetheless, its expansion in California marks a significant milestone, especially following its receipt of essential permits last August to commercially provide robotaxi services.

Since obtaining these permits, Waymo has offered its services 24/7 throughout San Francisco and has begun branching out into more regions within the vast Los Angeles area. The service has recently been extended to include additional cities on the San Francisco Peninsula, like Daly City, and has initiated trials of its fully autonomous vehicles—without a human safety operator—on the local freeways. There are ongoing efforts to facilitate pickups and drop-offs at San Francisco International Airport, though securing approval is expected to be a prolonged process.

Aside from these cities, Waymo also operates in Austin but hasn’t started charging for its driverless rides there.

While the expansion into new commercial territories is generating income for Waymo, the scale of this revenue remains undisclosed. However, this expansion has also led to increasing expenditures. Alphabet announced in June its plan to invest an additional $5 billion in its autonomous driving subsidiary over the coming years.