#automobiles + #self-driving

June 9, 2025

Waymo was the first to launch a driverless robotaxi service in 2020 and now operates in cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. By early 2025, total rides exceeded 10 million. This marked a ride-volume growth of over 5,500% since August 2023. It averages over 200,000 rides each week. They have about 1,500 vehicles now and also plan to add 2,000 more by 2026.

Pony.ai is a Nasdaq-listed autonomous driving startup that recently drew bullish analyst attention.

Pony.ai is launching its Gen-7 robotaxi vehicles in Shenzhen. They are partnering with Xihu Group and aim to deploy over 1,000 units. The company announced a deal with Tencent.

Profitability is expected by 2029, and strong funding is in place.

WeRide, a Nasdaq-traded company (WRD), posted Q1 2025 revenue of RMB72.4 million (US$10 million). This is a 1.8% increase from last year. Robotaxi revenue rose to RMB16.1 million, making up 22.3% of total revenue. This is a jump from 11.9% the previous year.

Analysts expect the company to turn profitable by 2027 but note regulatory and cost uncertainties.

While dozens of companies — 60 in all — have active permits to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver, it’s far less common to receive permission for driverless vehicles. Only AutoX, Nuro and Waymo hold this driverless permit.

In December 2018, Zoox became the first company to gain approval for providing self-driving transport services to the public in California.

In September 2020, Zoox became the fourth company in the State of California to receive permit to test driverless automobiles on public roads.

Vendors have taken a variety of approaches to the self-driving problem. Tesla's approach is to allow their "full self-driving" (FSD) system to be used in all ODDs as a Level 2 (hands/on, eyes/on) ADAS.[3] Waymo picked specific ODDs (city streets in Phoenix and San Francisco) for their Level 5 robotaxi service.[4] Mercedes Benz offers Level 3 service in Las Vegas in highway traffic jams at speeds up to 40 miles per hour (64 km/h).[5] Mobileye's SuperVision system offers hands-off/eyes-on driving on all road types at speeds up to 130 km/h (81 mph).[6] GM's hands-free Super Cruise operates on specific roads in specific conditions, stopping or returning control to the driver when ODD changes. In 2024 the company announced plans to expand road coverage from 400,000 miles to 750,000 miles (1,210,000 km).[7] Ford's BlueCruise hands-off system operates on 130,000 miles (210,000 km) of US divided highways.[8]

Disengagement

In 2017, Waymo reported 63 disengagements over 352,545 mi (567,366 km) of testing, an average distance of 5,596 mi (9,006 km) between disengagements, the highest (best) among companies reporting such figures. Waymo also logged more autonomous miles than other companies. Their 2017 rate of 0.18 disengagements per 1,000 mi (1,600 km) was an improvement over the 0.2 disengagements per 1,000 mi (1,600 km) in 2016, and 0.8 in 2015. In March 2017, Uber reported an average of 0.67 mi (1.08 km) per disengagement. In the final three months of 2017, Cruise (owned by GM) averaged 5,224 mi (8,407 km) per disengagement over 62,689 mi (100,888 km).[155]