Waymo leads the robotaxi market with 15 million driverless rides in 2025

A Waymo driverless rides In San Francisco the average is $8.17. Uber human in the same city? $17.25. The robo-taxi price war is here.

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I live in Phoenix most of the time, and I see… Waymos are everywhere. At the grocery store. On the highway. Sitting at red lights with no one behind the wheel, just shaking. I still haven’t gotten one. But I give myself two weeks.

If I survive, I will share the journey with you. Mostly kidding.

A Waymo car drives down Congress Avenue at 8th Street in front of the Capitol as rain arrives in the Austin area on Friday, January 23, 2025, ahead of expected dropping temperatures and freezing rain over the weekend. (Sarah Diggins/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)

Who’s on the road?

Waymo (owned by Google Mother Alphabet) He is the clear leader. It provided 15 million driverless rides in 2025, and today, about 400,000 rides per week. With a value of $126 billion. Available in Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Miami. Coming in 2026: Dallas, Denver, DC, London, Tokyo And more.

Will you buy the world’s first personal robotic car?

Tesla launched in Austin last June but is far behind. About 31 cars. One tester made 42 flights, and every one of them still had a safety monitor on board. Even Ashraf.

zoox (Owned by Amazon) is the wild card. Their cabin has no steering wheel and moves in both directions. Rides are free in Vegas and San Francisco while waiting for toll approval.

A Cruise car in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, February 2, 2022. Cruise LLC, a self-driving car startup majority owned by General Motors, said it is offering free rides to non-employees in San Francisco for the first time, a move that will generate another $1.35 billion from investor SoftBank Vision Fund. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

How do you “see” these things?

Waymo uses cameras, lidar (a laser radar that builds a 3D map around the car), and traditional radar. Works in complete darkness and heavy rain. Tesla only uses cameras. Eight of them, no lidar. Cheaper, that’s how they offer rides at $1.99 per km.

Now, are they safe?

WAYMO is under federal investigation after child was injured

Tesla reported Seven crashes To the organizers since its launch. Waymo says it has 80% fewer crashes than human drivers. But the NHTSA has recorded 1,429 Waymo crashes since 2021, 117 injuries and two deaths. Three programs have been pulled, including one last December for passing stopped school buses.

A friend of mine took her Waymo and dropped it off a full mile from where she was going. There is no way to change it. There is no human to mark it. Just a robot car that says, “You’ve arrived.”

Didn’t do that. So yes. I’m curious. But I’m also cautious.

Tesla Inc’s robotaxi. On Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. Tesla Inc.’s driverless taxi service is set to go live. On Sunday, it was modest, with a small number of vehicles in limited areas of the city. (Tim Goesman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This is where it gets hot

When a robo-taxi is confused, a human in a remote center sees through the car’s cameras and plots a route for it. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, February 4, Waymo admitted that some of these assistants are located in the Philippines. The senators were not amused. I wasn’t.

Your car is parked 95% of the time. Robotaxis works more than 15 hours a day. When the cost of a trip without a driver is less than gas and insurance, Owning a car feels like a gym membership that you never use.

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Do you know someone who still thinks self-driving cars are science fiction? Redirect this. They are on a journey.

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