Waymo now provides 500,000 paid robot rides each week in 10 US cities, the company shared in a post in X this week. The impressive figure reflects the Alphabet-owned company’s accelerating commercial expansion. But it’s Waymo’s pace of growth in ride-hailing and shopping that offers a more compelling story.
In less than two years, the company’s average weekly paid robot moves have increased tenfold, from 50,000 per week in May 2024 to 500,000 per week today. During the same two-year period, Waymo expanded into its original markets of Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles — and beyond to Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando. These seven cities in the Sun Belt were all added in just the past year.
Waymo’s robotaxi fleet has also grown, though the company has kept those numbers under wraps and rarely provides updates. Data is provided in December 2025 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that the company had 3,067 robotaxis equipped with the 5th generation autonomous driving system. The company still uses that “over 3,000” fleet number today. That could change soon with the introduction of the 6th generation autonomous driving system, which will debut in the Zeekr minivan, known as the Ojai, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
The relatively stable 3,000 fleet number, combined with an increase in weekly paid rides, suggests that Waymo is pushing more than just any robotaxi. This usage number is especially important because empty Waymo vehicles roaming San Francisco or elsewhere don’t make money and increase congestion.
This growth comes with challenges. Waymo has received more scrutiny in recent months from the public and regulators. For example, NHTSA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the illegal behavior of Waymo robotaxis around school buses. Meanwhile, San Francisco city officials have raised concerns about the company’s handling of stuck robotaxies, including Waymo’s occasional use of police and firefighters to clear its vehicles.
Waymo’s ridership numbers are still a slice of Uber’s human-centric driving business. Uber completed about 13.5 billion trips in 2025, a figure that includes completed pickup and delivery trips, according to securities filings. The closest pure ride-hail number was shared during Uber’s August 2024 earnings call, when the company said it completed more than 1 million movements per hour.
In other words, Waymo isn’t kicking Uber’s tires just yet.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, California
|
13-15 October 2026
However, with each passing month, the company’s lead in robot rides widens.
A number of companies are vying for a piece of this robotaxi pie, though many have yet to offer a fully autonomous ride-hailing service for a fee. There are a number of Chinese robotaxi companies, including Pony.ai and WeRide, that charge for robot rides, but none operate in the United States.
Tesla began operating a paid robotaxi service in Austin in January, and while CEO Elon Musk has said the company is close to a fully autonomous ride-hailing service in California, lacks any of the required licenses to do it. Other companies, including Avride, Hyundai, Motional and Zoox, are all pushing for paid robotaxi services in various markets by the end of the year.
All of them have some things to do.
