Waymo Accelerates: 14M Trips, 20 New Cities, and a Widening Lead

Robotaxi operator Waymo says it has completed 14 million trips in 2025, more than triple last year’s total. 

That puts the Google subsidiary far ahead of rival services, averaging about 269,000 weekly rides over the past 12 months. The company expects to surpass its target of 20 million cumulative rides by year’s end.

Launch announcements have accelerated in the past three months, reflecting growing confidence from Waymo and parent Google in the maturity of the self-driving technology. The service has rolled out in Atlanta and Austin through Uber partnerships, and plans to expand to 20 more cities next year, including its first international launches in London and Tokyo.

A letter from investor Tiger Global said Waymo recently exceeded 450,000 weekly trips. At that pace, it would reach around 24 million rides next year, though expansion suggests the figure could be far higher.

Waymo has not disclosed financials. But if the average fare was $20, it would have generated roughly $280 million in 2024, though the service is almost certainly loss-making given the scale of R&D spending.

“With the Waymo Driver at the wheel, our riders enjoyed over 3.8 million hours in their own trusted space to catch up on work, have a judgment-free conversation, or simply relax,” said the Waymo team in a press release. “Riders helped avoid over 18 million kilograms of CO2 emissions. And we accomplished these milestones all while delivering on our safety commitment —  achieving more than a 10-fold reduction in serious injury or worse crashes compared to human drivers.”

Waymo’s rapid expansion

Waymo is not only launching in 20 more cities, but is enabling its vehicles to operate in larger city zones. It plans to make its vehicles operable on freeways in San Francisco and Los Angeles before rolling it out to the entire network. This should amplify the number of users who take trips in them.

Although Waymo has partnered with Uber and Lyft to accelerate deployments, it appears set to take more control of the ride-hailing experience in most cities from 2026, positioning it as a serious competitor to traditional platforms if adoption mirrors California. 

The company’s current strategy clearly centres on robotaxis rather than licensing its technology to automakers or selling consumer vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has signalled a similar direction, with a plan to deploy one million robotaxis. Still, it already offers a limited self-driving feature as an upgrade for its Tesla cars. Automotive manufacturers in China also sell these self-driving upgrades, so customers will most likely have a few options for accessing autonomous driving. 

The gap is widening

Nothing is assured in a field where more than 40 companies are testing road-ready autonomous vehicles, but Waymo has created daylight with its multi-state expansion. National regulators in several countries, including the United States, are now exploring formal testing and regulation, a shift driven in part by Waymo’s progress.

With rivals such as Cruise, Argo AI, and Uber retreating from the sector over the past three years, the perception is that the gap is widening. Elon Musk would argue Tesla is matching (or surpassing Waymo’s capabilities), but the scale of deployed service and completed rides tells a different story. 

Similar to AI, there may now be a rush from several competitors to push their own self-driving operations to customers. Amazon-owned Zoox announced a few weeks ago that it plans to launch rides in San Francisco. Chinese operators, such as WeRide, Apollo Go, and Pony.ai, have also expanded their operations outside of China, launching in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Switzerland. 

Check out eWeek’s coverage of Waymo’s safety performance and what the latest crash data means for the future of autonomous rides.
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