Nandini Roy Choudhury, writer
Brief news
- The U.S. autonomous vehicle industry is evolving, with Waymo leading in commercial viability while GM exits its Cruise robotaxi business due to operational challenges and safety concerns.
- Waymo has completed over 4 million paid rides and plans to expand its services to new cities, including Atlanta and Austin, while testing in international markets like Tokyo.
- Tesla and Zoox are also developing autonomous vehicles, with Tesla unveiling its Cybercab concept, while Zoox prepares to launch its unique shuttles in Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Detailed news
The United States has never been closer to a driverless future, despite General Motors’ decision to terminate its Cruise robotaxi business earlier this month.
In the autonomous vehicle industry, 2024 will be noted as the year in which at least one significant U.S. player, Alphabet-owned Waymo, made progress toward commercial viability and observed signs of mainstream adoption.
That followed a tumultuous beginning for the domestic self-driving car industry.
Uber sold off its self-driving business in 2020 after a fatal collision, and Ford abandoned its stake in its robotaxi developers Argo.AI two years later, following a decade of significant venture investments in AV companies. In 2023, Cruise suspended all of its autonomous operations in California following collisions that resulted in investigations and the suspension of its licenses. GM had already invested $10 billion in Cruise when it made the decision to exit the robotaxi business earlier this month.
Waymo may have prevailed over Cruise in the United States market, but its domestic competitors are also striving to catch up. Elon Musk’s Tesla and Amazon-owned Zoox are among the most notable.
A portion of the substantial ride-hailing services market in the United States and beyond is at risk. The global ride-sharing market is anticipated to expand from an estimated $123.08 billion in 2024 to $480.09 billion by 2032, as per research conducted by Fortune Business Insights.
As the year 2025 approaches, the following is the current status of these significant actors.
Waymo surpasses its competitors.
Beginning as a “project chauffeur” at Google in 2009, the service evolved into a commercial robotaxi that is now available to the public in numerous U.S. cities this year.
The company announced on Wednesday that the project, which was rebranded as Waymo in 2016, has now completed over 4 million paid autonomous journeys in total. Waymo reported that it had completed approximately 700,000 driverless ride-hailing excursions a year ago, a figure that is more than triple the current figure.
Waymo’s service currently encompasses over 500 square miles of public highways in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
In June, the company discontinued its digital velvet rope and opened its robotaxi service to all San Franciscans. This service enables users to request rides through the Waymo One app. The company’s fleet of AVs was demonstrated to be capable of operating effectively in the traffic conditions of a complex urban environment by the opening to the general public, as well as by internal stakeholders.
In July, Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s then-CFO, disclosed a $5.6 billion investment by Google’s parent company in Waymo during an earnings call. Alphabet contributed $5 billion of this sum.
At an all-hands meeting in November, Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov advised employees to scale up as rapidly as possible, but to prioritize safety in all of their endeavors, according to company insiders as reported by CNBC.
In 2025, Waymo will prioritize the expansion of its robotaxi service to additional cities, the acquisition of new passengers, and the ongoing research and development of newer technology that will enable the company’s AVs to operate in a wider range of weather and traffic conditions.
Next year, Waymo intends to introduce a commercial service in Atlanta and Austin, Texas, that will be accessible via the Uber app. Additionally, it has initiated testing in Miami with the intention of providing public transportation there in 2026.
Waymo declared Tokyo as its inaugural international testing location earlier this month. Waymo has announced that it has formed a partnership with Nihon Kotsu, one of Japan’s largest taxi operators, and the taxi app GO. The company plans to begin conducting test journeys in early 2025.
In August, Waymo demonstrated its forthcoming iteration of autonomous vehicles, which it will manufacture in collaboration with the Chinese automaker Geely. The Geely Zeekr electric SUVs will incorporate Waymo’s proprietary electronics and software. Waymo was able to decrease the number of cameras on board from 29 to 13 and the number of expensive lidar sensors on board from five to four for this new robotaxi.
In October, the company also disclosed a partnership with Hyundai to incorporate the automaker’s Ioniq 5 SUV into Waymo’s fleet. The Waymo Ioniq 5s will be subjected to testing by the companies in late 2025.
Waymo is currently conducting testing and validation journeys in Detroit, Buffalo, New York, and at a test track in Columbus, Ohio, with its Jaguar I-Pace and newer Geely Zeekr vehicles. The purpose of these tests is to ascertain the performance of these systems in a variety of traffic and weather conditions.
In 2024, Waymo garnered a significant amount of social media and publicity, which sparked both excitement and controversy, as a result of its growing presence on U.S. streets and its progress.
In February, a crowd assaulted a Waymo vehicle and set it on fire. Users of the Reddit channel R/Waymo document every incident involving the company. The forum also examined instances in which Waymo vehicles were involved in collisions or backups of traffic.
In September, a woman posted on X that she was stranded in her Waymo robotaxi when two men halted it by standing outside the vehicle and requesting her phone number. This incident went viral.
Waymo has established a substantial public affairs operation, published more comprehensive safety reports in 2024, and is collaborating closely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, first responders, and authorities in the locations where it operates to preserve public confidence in the safety of its service.
Unveiling Tesla’s Robotaxi Concept
Musk, Tesla’s CEO, has been promising “robotaxi-ready” vehicles for approximately a decade. Since 2016, he has declared that Tesla is approximately one year away from achieving his vision. However, the company does not currently manufacture robotaxis or operate an autonomous ride-hailing service.
Despite the fact that Tesla failed to fulfill its robotaxi promises in 2024, Musk disclosed the appearance and feel of Tesla’s “dedicated robotaxi” at an event in October that took place on a movie studio lot in Burbank, California. He referred to the vehicle as the Cybercab and stated that Tesla intends to manufacture it by 2027 and sell it for less than $30,000.
The robotaxi concept, which was well-received by fans, was a two-seater with butterfly doors and no steering column or pedals. Earlier this month, the Petersen Automotive Museum incorporated a preproduction Cybercab into its collection.
The Robovan, a low-clearance autonomous bus with an art deco design aesthetic, was also showcased at the October event by Tesla.
Musk has pledged that Tesla’s Model Y and other vehicles will be capable of operating as robotaxis by 2025, provided that their systems are upgraded. At the Burbank event, Tesla also circulated Model Y vehicles in the enclosed studio lot, which demonstrated how Tesla anticipates they will operate as robotaxis. These vehicles were devoid of safety drivers.
Tesla had not yet submitted applications for licenses and permits that would have licensed it to operate a commercial robotaxi service in key U.S. markets, where such services are mandated by city or state authorities, at the time of the “We, Robot” event.
Tesla had already developed a “development app” that enabled employees to request a transport to any location within the San Francisco Bay Area, despite the absence of permits and licenses, as Musk informed analysts during an October earnings call.
Critics remain skeptical, in part due to Musk’s numerous missed deadlines on robotaxis, despite the fact that bullish investors anticipate that Tesla will fulfill its autonomous technology promises as early as next year.
Tesla currently offers driver assistance systems, such as its standard Autopilot option and a premium paid option called Full Self-Driving supervised. Tesla refers to these systems as “partially automated” in its correspondence with government agencies, as they are not robotaxi-ready. In the EV manuals, Tesla specifies that a human driver must be present at the wheel at all times, prepared to steer or decelerate, in order to operate FSD and Autopilot.
Tesla engaged in discussions with Austin authorities this year regarding the safety expectations of its autonomous vehicle technology.
Musk has consistently depicted regulation as a barrier that hindered Tesla’s ability to introduce self-driving vehicles onto U.S. roadways. Musk stated during a Tesla earnings call on October 23, that he would leverage his influence with the newly elected President-elect Donald Trump to establish a “federal approval process for autonomous vehicles.”
In a post for Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, AV policy expert Bryant Walker Smith, however, refuted the notion that regulation has inhibited any robotaxi business. Walker Smith cited Waymo as an example, asserting that “AVs can be — and in fact are — lawfully deployed and regulated under existing federal statutory law.”
Zoox “toasters” generate heat.
Zoox obtained critical permits in February, which enabled it to transport members of the public in its autonomous vehicles in Foster City, California, prior to Tesla’s unveiling of its Robovan and Cybercab designs.
Zoox, which was established in 2014 and was acquired by Amazon in 2020 in a transaction valued at approximately $1.3 billion, has created a distinctive self-driving shuttle that lacks a traditional windshield, driver’s seat, or steering column. The shuttle is equipped with large side windows and inward-facing seats.
A spokesperson for Zoox informed CNBC that the environmental conditions that its autonomous vehicles (AVs) can operate in on public roadways were expanded in March to include “nighttime driving, driving under light rain and damp road conditions, and at speeds up to 45 mph.”
The compact shuttles are equipped with calming lighting, ambient music, and interior cameras to monitor the interior of the cabin, and they can comfortably transport four adults and their luggage. The Zoox vehicles have been characterized as “futuristic hot dog toasters” or “toasters on wheels” by a few early riders.
Zoox, under the leadership of CEO Aicha Evans, intends to provide complimentary transportation to an increased number of individuals before expanding its services to the general public and paying customers in the early part of the following year.
The company informed CNBC that the service will commence in Las Vegas and subsequently expand to San Francisco. It will commence with an early rider program known as Zoox Explorers, which will enable a limited number of users to ride in a Zoox for free and provide feedback.
Zoox’s robotaxis are presently operating on public roads in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Foster City. This summer, the company initiated testing in Austin and Miami, where its test fleet continues to operate.
Additionally, senior talent has been recruited by the organization. Zheng Gao, who was previously the chief of Tesla’s autopilot hardware design team, was recently hired as the director of hardware engineering at Zoox.
Cruise’s departure
GM’s announcement earlier this month that it was exiting the business was a surprise to some longtime industry observers, despite the evident demand for robotaxi rides in the U.S. market.
During a conference call to announce the strategic shift, GM CEO Mary Barra stated, “Cruise was well on its way to becoming a robotaxi business. However, the deployment of a fleet presents a significant operational challenge.”
The Detroit automaker will now concentrate on the development of “personal autonomous vehicles” rather than robotaxis. GM has not yet determined the number of Cruise’s 2,300 employees who will be absorbed into its broader technology team.
Kyle Vogt, the founder of Cruise, who sold the company to GM in 2016 and departed the company in November 2023, posted on X following the automaker’s exit announcement, “In case it was unclear before, it is clear now: GM are a bunch of dummies.”
Cruise, an early entrant in the U.S. robotaxi market, suspended its driverless operations in October 2023, barely prior to Vogt’s departure. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration imposed a $1.5 million sanction on Cruise for failing to disclose the specifics of a severe pedestrian accident that transpired that month.
The tragedy was the result of ineptitude, poor leadership, and culture issues, according to a third-party investigation that was commissioned by GM and Cruise.
