Waymo robotaxis hit 250000 weekly rides: Is this the future of transport?

Remember those sci-fi movies? The ones with the cars driving themselves? It’s not science fiction anymore. It’s here. And it’s picking up speed.

Waymo, the self-driving car folks from Google’s parent company, are reporting some pretty impressive numbers. They’re now giving about 250,000 *paid* rides every week. That’s in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. Think about that. A quarter of a million rides. Without a driver.

That’s 50,000 more rides than they were doing back in February. Things are definitely moving fast.

Scaling Up: Waymo’s Next Move

The big question now? How do they keep up? Waymo’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, said they can’t do it all alone. And he’s right. Think of it like building a house. You need more than just a hammer and nails.

Waymo’s looking for partners. They’re talking to Uber, car companies, and even businesses that handle car maintenance. Basically, they want to team up to make robotaxis a reality for everyone.

The Competition Heats Up

Of course, Waymo isn’t the only player in the game. Elon Musk and Tesla have their own ideas. Musk has said that Waymo’s technology is too expensive. He thinks Tesla can do it cheaper.

The former CEO of Waymo, John Krafcik, fired back. He pointed out that Tesla hasn’t actually *sold* any robotaxi rides to the public. Ouch. Tesla sells cars. Waymo sells rides. Two different things.

There are other companies in the race too, like Amazon’s Zoox. But for now, Waymo seems to be in the lead.

The Future of Transportation?

Is this the future? Hard to say for sure. But the numbers are interesting. 250,000 rides a week is nothing to sneeze at. Maybe, just maybe, we’re all going to be hopping into driverless cars sooner than we think.

What do you think? Would you trust a robotaxi? Let me know in the comments!