Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo closes $5.6 billion funding round as robotaxi race heats up in the U.S.

Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo closes .6 billion funding round as robotaxi race heats up in the U.S.


A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. 

Mario Tama | Getty Images

Waymo has closed a $5.6 billion funding round to expand its robotaxi service in and beyond Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, where it operates today.

The autonomous vehicle venture is owned by Google parent Alphabet, which led the series C investment in Waymo, alongside earlier backers including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.

In a statement to CNBC, Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov said the funding would go toward expansion and advancing the Waymo Driver for business applications.

“With this latest investment, we will continue to welcome more riders into our Waymo One ride-hailing service in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and in Austin and Atlanta through our expanded partnership with Uber,” they wrote.

The series C funding brings Waymo’s total capital raised to $11.1 billion after it raised $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion in two earlier rounds. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced in July that the parent company would commit to a multiyear investment of up to $5 billion in Waymo.

While many companies are testing autonomous vehicles, or AVs, on public roads in the U.S., including well-funded upstarts such as Wayve, Waymo is the only one to operate a commercial robotaxi service in several major metro areas.

The service has been embraced by some women who have safety concerns about riding with unknown human drivers. And it has even been used by parents to send their teens to school when other transit options felt less safe or convenient.

Waymo now conducts more than 100,000 weekly trips for passengers in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco, who can hail their robotaxis via the Waymo One app. More recently, Waymo partnered with Uber to launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas — home of would-be rival Tesla’s headquarters.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made promises about self-driving cars for more than a decade. This week, he said Tesla would offer a driverless ride-hailing service in Texas and California next year, once the company upgrades the partially automated systems in its existing vehicles, which still require a human driver today.

GM-owned Cruise had been Waymo’s closest competitor in the U.S. until it paused operations following an October 2023 incident in San Francisco in which a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise AV, after she was first struck by a human driver in another car. Cruise is working to reinstate its service and also plans to partner with Uber.

Self-driving vehicle makers in the U.S. must still prove their technology is safer to use than taxis and trucks with human drivers. As CNBC previously reported, nearly two-thirds of U.S. respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said they would not want to ride in a driverless passenger vehicle if they had the opportunity.

Waymo’s self-reported data suggests that their vehicles crash “far less often than human drivers on public roads,” according to analysis by Understanding AI author Timothy B. Lee.

Still, Waymo has initiated software recalls to improve the safety of its self-driving systems, and its AVs have sometimes blocked traffic, traveled the wrong way down the street, or been involved in collisions, though none resulted in a known fatality or severe injury.

The next-generation robotaxi from Waymo is a Geely Zeekr that’s equipped with its custom sensors and AI “Driver.” Waymo also recently agreed to a multiyear strategic partnership with Hyundai that will add the South Korean automaker’s Ioniq 5 electric vehicle to its robotaxi fleet.

In August, Waymo said it would also test its driverless vehicles in harsher, winter weather including in northern California, upstate New York and Michigan, with the hope of offering robotaxi services beyond the sunbelt, and eventually internationally.



Source

Behind the scenes with the team of ex-prosecutors fighting Amazon’s counterfeit problem
Technology

Behind the scenes with the team of ex-prosecutors fighting Amazon’s counterfeit problem

In October 2018, police showed up at a nondescript industrial warehouse in New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard to investigate reported counterfeits.  Federal agents were looking for knockoff military gear as part of an investigation into a distributor, called California Surplus, that had secured a $20 million contract to supply the U.S. military with specialized uniforms. […]

Read More
Elon Musk is  billion richer after Tesla’s best day on the stock market since 2013
Technology

Elon Musk is $26 billion richer after Tesla’s best day on the stock market since 2013

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk speaks during an unveiling event for Tesla products in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 10, 2024 Source: Tesla | Youtube Tesla CEO Elon Musk, already the world’s richest person, added another $26 billion in paper wealth on Thursday after his company’s stock had its biggest rally since 2013. […]

Read More
Tesla shares surge 19% and head for best day in more than 3 years on Musk’s 2025 growth projection
Technology

Tesla shares surge 19% and head for best day in more than 3 years on Musk’s 2025 growth projection

Elon Musk attends ‘Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in Conversation with Elon Musk’ session during the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 – Day Three on June 19, 2024 in Cannes, France. Marc Piasecki | Getty Images Tesla shares soared roughly 19% Thursday morning, putting the stock on pace for its […]

Read More