Waymo is the first self-driving car service in the USA.
Waymo is Alphabet’s (Google’s) fastest-growing autonomous ride-hailing company.
Few Facts
i) Started in 2018
ii) Waymo initially drove only Jaguar cars
iii) In 2018, Jaguar was the only EV company that could meet Waymo’s requirements
iv) Jaguar had both boot space and trunk space at that time
v) Tesla was another company that met Waymo’s requirements in 2018, but Google
considered Tesla a competitor
Waymo has come a long way in a very short period.
Ride Statistics
a) Weekly paid rides:
● May 2024 – 50,000
● May 2025 – 250,000
● December 2025 – 450,000
b) Annual paid rides: 14 million
c) Monthly paid rides: 1 million
Atlanta Experience
Waymo started operations in my city, Atlanta, on 24 June 2025, through Uber rides.
I was very skeptical and fearful about riding in a car without a driver in the driver’s seat.
It looks scary to see the steering wheel turning without a driver which was something I
had never seen in real life.
No matter how much I avoided it, I finally had my first encounter during Thanksgiving
break.
We booked an Uber, and what we got was a Waymo.
I was shocked and a bit scared, but a few friends were joining the ride with me.
My Observations
1. It was on time
2. The driver was polite
3. The driver did not have mood swings
4. We could play songs of our choice
5. It was politically unbiased and had no religion issues, no racism
6. The driver did not have sad stories or lame excuses
7. We could sit in the front seat as well, which many drivers do not allow
8. It is convenient during odd hours and festival seasons
Cons
1. Real-life problems are dynamic, and not everything can be loaded into software
2. At one point, the road was narrow and the car stopped as per Waymo’s
intelligence, whereas a human knows how to bypass such situations. Waymo still
has to learn this
Economics of Waymo
Though I feel it has more pros than cons, we still need to understand the true
economics.
Waymo Costs
● Car cost: USD 75,000
● Software & hardware: USD 100,000
● Total cost: USD 175,000
Uber car cost: USD 35,000
The gap is huge: USD 140,000.
This increases the cost per kilometer.
In fact, Waymo costs USD 2–3 more per kilometer than a regular Uber ride.
Waymo plans to reduce the total cost by USD 100,000 in the near future by:
1. Inducting cheaper models from Hyundai and Zeekr
2. Making software and hardware more efficient and cheaper
Waymo has a bright future. We will see the fleet size increase from the present 2.5k to
10k–15k in the next 2–3 years.
In most cities where it has launched, it currently has a ride share of 2–3%.
With an increase in vehicle numbers, this will rise to 5–10% in the next 2–3 years.
The number of cities will increase to 20 by 2026. Waymo plans to reach 1 million rides
per week in 2026, up from the present 450,000 more than double in one year.
There have been a few cases involving Waymo. I’ll discuss the latest three that went
viral:
1. A cat was killed after it slid under the bottom of the car, and Waymo could not
sense it
On 21 December 2025, all Waymo vehicles stood still during a power outage in
San Francisco. This was not Waymo’s fault since during the outage, all
streetlights went blank, and Waymo is not supposed to move when streetlights
are non-functional
3. Once, a police officer could not issue a ticket because there was no driver
There will always be incidents, cars, planes, everyone has them. With 450,000 rides per
week, even if 99% are safe, there can still be 4,500 incidents per week. Compared to
that, Waymo incidents are almost negligible.
Just because the car is always under surveillance and critics are constantly watching it
doesn’t mean it lacks capability.
In the next decade, all high-end cars will be autonomous, not only for taxis, but for
personal use as well. We have already come a long way in cars: power windows, AC,
central locking, automatic gears. Now these all are basic features.
Tesla FSD is also almost there, just one step behind fully autonomous Level 5. Human
drivers will become irrelevant in the next decade.
