Six months ago, Waymo disclosed it was providing 250,000 robotaxi rides a week across its service areas, an ever-growing list that includes Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Alphabet-owned self-driving company has been coy ever since, simply stating it is providing many hundreds of thousands of weekly rides. Now, we have a firmer grasp on those weekly ride numbers, thanks to a leaked letter from Tiger Global Management to it investors that was first reported by CNBC.
The letter was an appeal for investment into Tiger Global’s next venture capital fund and called out the gains, so far, of its current fund. Those gains rested largely on its investments in hot companies like OpenAI, Databricks, and Waymo. In the letter, Tiger disclosed that Waymo is now providing 450,000 robotaxi rides per week — nearly double the amount it disclosed this spring.
That number will rise as the company continues its aggressive rollout strategy, too. Waymo, which provides commercial robotaxi service in five cities, has announced plans to launch in 12 additional cities in 2026, including Dallas, Denver, Houston, Nashville, and San Diego.
A Waymo spokesperson declined to comment.
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Another week, another round of announcements about robotaxis either launching or planning to in cities.
Let’s take stock. Waymo started testing its autonomous vehicles (with a safety monitor) in Philadelphia and will start manual driving to collect data in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh; Uber and Avride launched a robotaxi service in Dallas that will initially include a human safety operator behind the wheel; and the California Department of Motor Vehicles released revised rules that would allow companies to test and eventually deploy self-driving trucks on public highways in the state.
Autonomous vehicle tech is scaling and the pace is quickening. But should it?
As autonomous vehicle tech percolates into the cityscape, so has the criticism and challenges. A couple of recent incidents illustrate this point.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked Waymo for more information about its self-driving system and operations following reports from the Austin School District that its robotaxis illegally passed school buses 19 times this year. The agency already opened an investigation into Waymo’s performance around school buses.
Then there is KitKat, the bodega cat that died after a Waymo robotaxi ran him over on October 27. The company was already facing criticism over the event. And now it might escalate thanks to new video. The NYT tracked down surveillance video that shows a woman crouching beside the Waymo trying to lure KitKat to safety before the vehicle suddenly pulled away.
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A lot of changes have been happening at Lucid Motors recently, according to some little birds.
As many of you already know, the company has lost a number of top executives, including former CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson and most recently, chief designer Eric Bach. Lucid, which is in the middle of ramping up production of its Gravity SUV, has patched some of these vacancies with a mix of internal promotions and outside hires.
And the changes keep coming. A few little birdies told us this week that a handful or more of top managers on its software and electrical teams were let go, including two senior directors who started with Lucid around a decade ago.
Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
Electric aircraft maker Beta Technologies, which went public last month, is carving out a nice little supplier business for itself. Which is fitting since the Vermont-based company is aiming to be an OEM to the aviation sector.
The company locked in a deal to supply air taxi company Eve Air Mobility with its electric pusher motors. Beta says the agreement is a potential 10-year opportunity valued at $1 billion.
Of course, “potential” is an important hedge. That $1 billion is not guaranteed, even if shareholders translated it as such (stocks popped 8% following the news). Still, Beta is finding a near-term revenue path as it continues to work toward the commercial certification of its electric aircraft with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The company also reported its third-quarter earnings this week. Beta saw its revenue more than double to $8.9 million from the same quarter last year. Its net losses have also grown. Beta reported net losses of $452 million in the third quarter, a more than fivefold increase from the same year-ago period.
Other deals that got my attention …
Autolane, a Palo Alto-based startup developing the “air traffic control” for autonomous vehicles, raised $7.4 million in a round led by VC firms Draper Associates and Hyperplane.
Element Fleet Management, an automotive fleet manager, acquired San Francisco-based connected vehicle payments company Car IQ. The terms weren’t disclosed, but sources with information on the deal told TechCrunch the acquisition price was $80 million. History lesson: back in 2024, Canada-based Element Fleet Management acquired fleet optimization software startup Autofleet for $110 million.
ExploMar, a China-based developer of electric propulsion systems for boats, raised $10 million in a Series A round. The investment was jointly led by private equity funds and a listed company in China (not disclosed), with existing shareholder DCM Ventures continuing to participate.
Heven AeroTech, a startup developing hydrogen-powered drones, raised $100 million in a Series B round led by American quantum computing company IonQ. The company’s post-money valuation is now more than $1 billion. Texas Venture Partners also participated.
Wayve, the buzzy U.K. self-driving startup backed by Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank Group, acquired German startup Quality Match, which analyzes data used to train AI models for automated driving. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Amazon is considering ending its long-standing contract with the United States Postal Service and building out its own competing nationwide delivery network.
Tesla owners can text and drive with the latest version of the company’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver-assistance software, despite the fact that it’s illegal to do so in most states.
Grand Theft Auto Online has added robotaxis from a fictional-yet-familiar company dubbed “KnoWay,” whose sole purpose appears to be wreaking havoc.
Nvidia announced Alpamayo-R1, an open reasoning vision language model for autonomous driving research.
TechCrunch’s Europe-based reporter Anna Heim gives an inside look at a drone delivery partnership in Finland.
The Trump administration said it will lower fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks sold in the United States, arguing it will make vehicles more affordable. There’s a trade-off, though. Consumers could end up paying more for gas.
The reduction essentially brings vehicles below what they’re achieving already. The proposal would roll fleet-wide fuel economy to 34.5 miles per gallon for 2031 model-year cars. The previous fuel economy standard, set under the Biden administration, mandated fuel economy of 50.4 mpg by 2031. In 2024, automakers had to average 30.1 mpg across their fleets, which they beat, delivering 35.4 mpg, according to CAFE calculations.
Back before Thanksgiving, we did a poll in the Mobility newsletter asking, “When do you expect robotaxis to reach a tipping point of mass adoption that will affect how people move from Point A to Point B?” Most readers picked “before the end of the decade,” which received 47.2% of the vote, followed by the “2030s.” Based on your votes, there appears to be low confidence that 2026 will be the year of the tipping point.
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Waymo plans to voluntarily issue a software recall with federal safety regulators related to how its robotaxis operate around school buses, the Alphabet-owned company told TechCrunch.
The voluntary software recall will be filed early next week, according to the company. Waymo said as soon as the issue was identified it updated its software on November 17. The company contends this update has meaningfully improved performance to a level better than human drivers in this important area.
Software recalls have become more common in the age of modern passenger vehicles — and now robotaxis — in which operations are handled by software. These updates, or fixes, are often made prior to the official recall but still carry weight when filed with the federal government.
Waymo’s decision follows increased scrutiny by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and criticism by officials in Atlanta and Austin over how its robotaxis perform around school buses.
NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened its initial investigation into Waymo in October after seeing footage of its autonomous vehicle maneuvering around a stopped school bus — with its stop sign extended and lights flashing — that was unloading kids in Atlanta. In that incident, a Waymo robotaxi crossed perpendicularly in front of the school bus from its right side. The autonomous vehicle then turned left around the front of the bus before traveling down the street.
Other similar incidents popped up in Austin, where the company also operates a robotaxi service with partner Uber. Austin School District officials contend, in a letter available on NHTSA’s website, that at least five of these occurred after Waymo said it updated its software.
The agency sent a letter December 3 to Waymo asking for more information about its self-driving system and operations following reports from the Austin School District that its robotaxis illegally passed school buses 19 times this year. Regulators requested detailed information about its fifth-generation self-driving system and operations.
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“While we are incredibly proud of our strong safety record showing Waymo experiences twelve times fewer injury crashes involving pedestrians than human drivers, holding the highest safety standards means recognizing when our behavior should be better,” Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña said in an emailed statement. “As a result, we have made the decision to file a voluntary software recall with NHTSA related to appropriately slowing and stopping in these scenarios. We will continue analyzing our vehicles’ performance and making necessary fixes as part of our commitment to continuous improvement.”
No injuries occurred related to the vehicle behavior addressed by this recall, according to the company, which has emphasized that safety is its top priority and it will continue to work with NHTSA.
The company says it will continue to investigate, track, and implement more updates as needed.
Waymo made a voluntary software recall earlier this year as well as two in 2024, including one that was issued after a Waymo vehicle in Phoenix, driving without a human safety operator, collided with a telephone pole in an alley during a low-speed pullover maneuver.
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The latest expansion to Grand Theft Auto Online includes robotaxis from a fictional-yet-familiar company dubbed “KnoWay,” whose sole purpose appears to be wreaking havoc.
A trailer released Friday shows KnoWay vans adorned with lidar sensors swerving through city streets, wrecking other cars, and crashing through a billboard for the made up company.
While that’s all far more chaotic and destructive than even some of the worst behavior that Waymo’s robotaxis have been guilty of, the in-game autonomous vehicles nonetheless resemble the company’s earlier-generation Chrysler Pacifica vans. The expansion is called “A Safehouse in the Hills” and is available starting December 10.
It’s not clear if the vans in the trailer have been, in true Grand Theft Auto fashion, hijacked by playable characters, or if they’ve gone rogue. It seems likely it’s the latter, though, as Rockstar Games says players will be encouraged to “stop the development of a mass surveillance network in an all-new action-packed adventure” as part of the DLC. (The trailer also teases a storyline that involves an AI assistant named “Haviland,” so the tech world in general appears to be a part of this particular storyline.)
Waymo has said it will deny government requests for the footage its vehicles capture if those requests are “overly broad and unlawful.” But its robotaxis have nevertheless drawn criticism for being part of a growing surveillance state. That frustration has contributed to the company’s vehicles becoming a target of multiple instances of vandalism. Waymo SUVs have been burned, smashed, and had their tires slashed in different cities over the last few years.
Rockstar is clearly tapping into those same dynamics here, as the tagline for KnoWay’s “autonomous hailing system” in the game is: “We Kno where you’re going.” It’s not hard to imagine some players of the DLC taking some of their frustrations out on the virtual vehicles once the update is released later this month.
Waymo declined to comment.
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At TechCrunch Disrupt in October, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana spoke out against the vandalism, saying her company was “very focused on working with law enforcement to make sure that we pursue the people who are committing these crimes against our fleet.”
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