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Right now, in several American cities, you can open an app, and a car with no driver pulls up and takes you wherever you want to go. No small talk. No wrong turns. No tip. No perfume covering up the cigarette smells.
A driverless Waymo ride in San Francisco averages $8.17. A human Uber in the same city? $17.25. The robotaxi price war is here.
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I live in Phoenix most of the time, and I see Waymos everywhere. At the grocery store. On the freeway. Sitting at red lights with nobody behind the wheel, just vibing. I still haven’t gotten in one. But I’m giving myself two weeks.
If I survive, I’ll share the ride. Mostly kidding.
A Waymo drives across Congress Avenue on 8th Street in front of the Capitol Building as rain arrives in the Austin area on Friday, Jan. 23, 2025 ahead of anticipated drops in temperature and freezing rain over the weekend. (Sara Diggins/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Who’s on the road?
Waymo (owned by Google’s parent Alphabet) is the clear leader. It gave 15 million driverless rides in 2025, and today, it’s about 400,000 per week. Valued at $126 billion. Available in Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta and Miami. Coming in 2026: Dallas, Denver, DC, London, Tokyo and more.
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Tesla launched in Austin last June but is way behind. Roughly 31 cars. One tester took 42 trips, and every single one still had a safety monitor on board. So supervised.
Zoox (owned by Amazon) is the wild card. Their pod has no steering wheel and drives in both directions. Rides are free in Vegas and San Francisco while they wait for approval to charge.
A Cruise vehicle in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday Feb. 2, 2022. Cruise LLC, the self-driving car startup that is majority owned by General Motors Co., said its offering free rides to non-employees in San Francisco for the first time, a move that triggers another $1.35 billion from investor SoftBank Vision Fund. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
How do these things ‘see’?
Waymo uses cameras, lidar (laser radar that builds a 3D map around the car) and traditional radar. It works in total darkness and heavy rain. Tesla uses cameras only. Eight of them, no lidar. Cheaper, which is how they offer rides at $1.99 per kilometer.
Now, are they safe?
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Tesla has reported seven crash incidents to regulators since launching. Waymo says it has 80% fewer injury crashes than human drivers. But NHTSA has logged 1,429 Waymo incidents since 2021, 117 injuries, two fatalities. Three software recalls, including one last December for passing stopped school buses.
A friend of mine took a Waymo, and it dropped her off a full mile from where she was going. No way to change it. No human to flag down. Just a robot car that said, “You have arrived.”
She had not. So yeah. I’m curious. But I’m also cautious.
A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. The launch of Tesla Inc.’s driverless taxi service Sunday is set to begin modestly, with a handful of vehicles in limited areas of the city. (Tim Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Here’s where it gets spicy
When a robotaxi gets confused, a human in a remote center sees through the car’s cameras and draws a path for it. At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 4, Waymo admitted some of those helpers are in the Philippines. Senators were not amused. I wasn’t either.
Your car sits parked 95% of the time. Robotaxis run 15+ hours a day. When a driverless ride costs less than gas and insurance, owning a car feels like a gym membership you never use.
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