SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Waymo said on Tuesday it had doubled its paid rides to 100,000 a week in just over three months as the autonomous ride-sharing company expanded its service areas and allowed more people to ride in its robotaxis.
Waymo’s expansion comes just a month after Alphabet announced it would invest $5 billion in the company over several years, but its autonomous vehicle technology continues to face widespread skepticism, intense regulatory scrutiny and federal investigations.
Waymo, whose fleet consists of about 700 vehicles, is the only U.S. company that operates unmanned robotaxis that collect fares. The company opened its service to all San Francisco residents in June without requiring them to join a waitlist and has expanded its operations in the Phoenix metropolitan area. This month, Waymo expanded its services to the San Francisco Peninsula and certain parts of Los Angeles.
“People still think autonomous vehicles are the distant future, but for more and more people they are now an everyday reality,” Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi said in a statement, adding that Waymo expanded “consciously” and by “optimizing costs.”
This is crucial as competition for Waymo is expected to increase, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk expected to unveil the electric vehicle leader’s delayed plans for its robotaxi product in October.
Other competitors include General Motors’ Cruise, which is returning to U.S. roads with safety drivers after a serious accident last year, Amazon’s Zoox, which is expanding testing of its vehicles built without steering wheels and pedals, and China-based WeRide, which is seeking a $5 billion valuation in its New York IPO and has received approval from California to test with passengers.
(Reporting by Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Editing by Kim Coghill)
