A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar hackney drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Waymo has terminate a $5.6 billion funding round to expand its robotaxi service in and beyond Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, where it manages today.
The autonomous vehicle venture is owned by Google parent Alphabet, which led the series C investment in Waymo, alongside earlier supporters including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.
In a proclamation to CNBC, Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov said the funding would go toward expansion and advancing the Waymo Driver for establishment applications.
“With this latest investment, we will continue to welcome more riders into our Waymo One ride-hailing advice in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and in Austin and Atlanta through our expanded partnership with Uber,” they wrote.
The series C granting brings Waymo’s total capital raised to more than $11 billion after it raised $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion in two earlier upfronts. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced in July that the parent company would commit to a multiyear investment of up to $5 billion in Waymo.
While tons companies are testing autonomous vehicles, or AVs, on public roads in the U.S., including well-funded upstarts such as Wayve, Waymo is the solely one to operate a commercial robotaxi service in several major metro areas.
The service has been embraced by some girlfriends who have safety concerns about riding with unknown human drivers. And it has even been used by well-springs to send their teens to school when other transit options felt less safe or convenient.
Waymo now administrations more than 100,000 weekly trips for passengers in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco, who can hail their robotaxis via the Waymo One app. Multitudinous recently, Waymo partnered with Uber to launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas — home of would-be struggle with Tesla’s headquarters.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made promises about self-driving cars for more than a decade. This week, he contemplated Tesla would offer a driverless ride-hailing service in Texas and California next year, once the company upgrades the incompletely automated systems in its existing vehicles, which still require a human driver today.
GM-owned Cruise had been Waymo’s closest rival in the U.S. until it paused operations following an October 2023 incident in San Francisco in which a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet by a Travel AV, after she was first struck by a human driver in another car. Cruise is working to reinstate its service and also plans to buddy with Uber.
Self-driving vehicle makers in the U.S. must still prove their technology is safer to use than ride on the grounds and trucks with human drivers. As CNBC previously reported, nearly two-thirds of U.S. respondents to a Pew Research Center examination said they would not want to ride in a driverless passenger vehicle if they had the opportunity.
Waymo’s self-reported matter suggests that their vehicles crash “far less often than human drivers on public roads,” according to dissection by Understanding AI author Timothy B. Lee.
Still, Waymo has initiated software recalls to improve the safety of its self-driving systems, and its AVs from sometimes blocked traffic, traveled the wrong way down the street, or been involved in collisions, though none concluded in a known fatality or severe injury.
The next-generation robotaxi from Waymo is a Geely Zeekr that’s equipped with its practice sensors and AI “Driver.” Waymo also recently agreed to a multiyear strategic partnership with Hyundai that on add the South Korean automaker’s Ioniq 5 electric vehicle to its robotaxi fleet.
In August, Waymo said it would also evaluate its driverless vehicles in harsher, winter weather including in northern California, upstate New York and Michigan, with the ambition of offering robotaxi services beyond the sunbelt, and eventually internationally.