Competition intensifies in the US autonomous taxi market, Google's Waymo secures $5.6 billion in funding

Google's parent company Alphabet's autonomous driving car company Waymo has just completed a $5.6 billion round of financing, planning to use this funding to expand its self-driving taxi service in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix in the United States, and may expand to new markets like Austin and Atlanta.

According to CNBC's report on Friday, October 25th, Eastern Time, this Series C financing round has brought Waymo's total capital raised to over $11 billion. Previously, it had raised $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion in two early rounds of financing. Alphabet's Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat announced in July this year that the parent company would commit to investing up to $5 billion in Waymo over several years.

This financing round was led by Alphabet, with early investors Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity Investments, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price also participating in the investment.

Currently, Waymo provides self-driving taxi services in several major cities in the United States, offering over 100,000 trips to passengers each week, who can hail a ride through the Waymo One app.

Intensifying Competition in the U.S. Self-Driving Taxi Market

Waymo's co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov stated in an interview with CNBC that the new funds will be used to expand their business and advance the commercial application of Waymo Driver technology. They announced that Waymo plans to launch its self-driving taxi service in Texas's Austin through a partnership with Uber, which is the potential competitor Tesla's headquarters.

Although Tesla CEO Musk announced this week that self-driving taxi services will be launched in Texas and California next year, Waymo still maintains a leading position in the self-driving field. Tesla still needs to upgrade its semi-automatic system, so the current cars still require human drivers.

Waymo's self-driving taxis are popular among women and parents for their safety. They believe this service is safer than traditional taxis as there are no unfamiliar drivers, so some parents use this service to send their children to school.

However, U.S. autonomous vehicle manufacturers still need to prove that their technology is safer than human-driven taxis and trucks. As previously reported by CNBC, a survey by the Pew Research Center showed that nearly two-thirds of American respondents said they would not ride in a self-driving passenger vehicle if given the opportunity.

Therefore, Waymo is also actively enhancing the safety of its autonomous driving technology. Despite occasional traffic jams, wrong turns on the streets, or even being involved in collisions, CNBC understands that these incidents have not resulted in any known deaths or serious injuries In contrast, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, used to be a competitor of Waymo in the United States, but temporarily suspended operations due to an accident in October 2023. In that incident, a pedestrian was first hit by a human driver in another car, and then dragged 20 feet by Cruise's autonomous vehicle. Cruise is now working to resume services and plans to collaborate with Uber.

While many companies are testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in the United States, Waymo is the only company that truly offers autonomous taxi services in several major cities. According to Timothy B. Lee, the author of Understanding AI, Waymo's self-reported data shows that their vehicles have a collision rate on public roads "much lower than human drivers".

Waymo has announced that their next generation of autonomous taxis will use the Geely Zeekr model, equipped with custom sensors and artificial intelligence "drivers". Additionally, Waymo has entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Hyundai, incorporating Hyundai's Ioniq 5 electric vehicles into its autonomous taxi fleet.

Furthermore, Waymo plans to test its autonomous vehicles in more severe winter weather conditions, including testing in Northern California, Northern New York, and Michigan, in hopes of expanding services to more areas in the future and eventually achieving internationalization