Waymo dominated U.S. robotaxi market in 2024, but Tesla, Zoox loom

in spite of general motors With the decision to shut down the cruise robo-taxi business earlier this month, the United States is closer than ever to a driverless future.

For the self-driving car industry, 2024 will be remembered as the year that at least one major US company entered the picture. alphabet– Owned by Waymo — showing signs of mainstream adoption and moving towards commercial viability.

This comes after a rocky start for the domestic self-driving car industry.

After 10 years of huge venture investments in AV companies; Uber We sold our self-driving business in 2020 following a fatal accident, and two years later… ford Abandoned its stake in robotaxis developer Argo.AI. In 2023, Cruise suspended all unmanned operations after its license was suspended following an investigation into a crash in California. When GM decided to exit the robotaxi business earlier this month, it had already poured $10 billion into Cruise.

Waymo may have overtaken Cruise to lead the U.S. market, but domestic competitors are also trying to catch up — most notably with Elon Musk’s automaker Tesla. AmazonOwned Zoox.

At stake is a huge share of the U.S. and international ride-hailing market. research by The global ridesharing market is projected to grow from an estimated $123.08 billion in 2024 to $480.09 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.

Here’s where these key companies stand as 2025 approaches.

Waymo goes far ahead

What started as Google’s “Project Driver” in 2009 became a commercial robo-taxi service available to the public in multiple U.S. cities this year.

The project, which was rebranded as Waymo in 2016, has now completed more than 5 million total self-driving trips, the company announced last week. This is about a seven-fold increase from November 2023, when Waymo announced it had completed about 700,000 driverless ride trips.

Waymo’s service currently operates in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, covering more than 500 square miles of public roads.

In June, the company retired its digital velvet rope and opened its robotaxi service to all San Franciscans, allowing them to request rides via the Waymo One app. The public launch proved to lidar and internally that the company’s AV fleet can perform well in traffic situations in complex urban environments.

In July, Alphabet’s then-CFO Ruth Porat announced on an earnings call a multi-year investment by Google’s parent company in Waymo totaling $5.6 billion, including 50 The billion dollars came from Alphabet.

Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov told employees at an all-hands meeting in November that they needed to scale as aggressively as possible, but with safety as a top priority. “It should be prioritized,” a company official told CNBC.

Waymo’s big focus in 2025 will be expanding its robo-taxi service to more cities, gaining passenger acceptance, and new technology that will allow the company’s self-driving cars to operate in more weather and traffic conditions. The goal is to continue research and development.

Waymo plans to launch commercial service austin, texas, atlantarides will be available through the Uber app next year. The company has also begun testing in Miami, with plans to offer rides to the public in Miami in 2026.

Earlier this month, Waymo announced its first international test destination in Tokyo. Waymo announced that it will begin test rides in early 2025 in partnership with taxi app GO and Nippon Kotsu, one of Japan’s largest taxi operators.

In August, Waymo unveiled a next-generation self-driving car that it will manufacture jointly with Chinese automaker Geely Automobile. Waymo’s custom hardware and software will be integrated into the Geely Zeekr electric SUV. With this new robotaxi, Waymo was able to reduce the number of cameras it carries from 29 to 13, and the number of expensive LIDAR sensors from five to four.

The company also announced a partnership with Hyundai in October to integrate the automaker’s Ioniq 5 SUV into its Waymo fleet. The companies announced that they will begin testing the Waymo Ioniq 5s by the second half of 2025.

Waymo has already conducted test and validation drives using Jaguar I-Pace and new Geely Zeekr vehicles at test tracks in Detroit, Buffalo, New York, and Columbus, Ohio, where these systems are We understand how it works in traffic and traffic situations. weather.

Given its progress and growing presence on the streets of the United States, Waymo received a lot of social media and publicity in 2024, sparking joy and controversy.

On the Reddit channel “R/Waymo,” users document every incident involving the company, including one in February when a crowd attacked and set a Waymo car on fire. The forum also dissected instances where Waymo vehicles were involved in collisions or backing up traffic.

Another incident went viral when a woman went. Posted in X In September, she said she was stuck inside a Waymo robotaxi when two men stood outside her car, stopped her and asked for her phone number.

To maintain public confidence in the safety of its service, Waymo is building an extensive public relations campaign, issuing a more detailed safety report in 2024, and providing support to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, first responders, We work closely with authorities in the cities where we operate. .

Tesla reveals robotaxi concept

Tesla CEO Musk has been promising “robotaxis-enabled” cars for nearly a decade. Although he has declared every year since 2016 that his company is about a year away from realizing his vision, Tesla still doesn’t build robotaxis or operate a driverless ride-hailing service.

Tesla failed to deliver on its robotaxi promise in 2024, but Musk revealed the look and feel of Tesla’s “private robotaxi” at an event held on the grounds of a movie studio in Burbank, Calif., in October. I made it. He called the vehicle “CyberCab” and said Tesla hopes to produce it by 2027 and sell it for less than $30,000.

The robotaxi concept to the delight of fans was a two-seater with butterfly doors and no steering wheel or pedals. Petersen Automotive Museum already Prototype cyber cab Added to collection earlier this month.

At the October event, Tesla also unveiled RoboVan, a low-slung self-driving bus with an Art Deco design aesthetic.

Musk promised that Tesla’s Model Y and other vehicles could function as robotaxis as early as 2025 once their systems are upgraded. A Model Y vehicle without a safety driver also circulated around a closed environment on the studio grounds at the Burbank event, demonstrating how Tesla envisions it functioning as a robotaxis.

At the time of that “We, Robot” event, Tesla had not applied for licenses or permits required by city or state authorities to allow it to operate commercial robotaxi services in major U.S. markets.

Despite the lack of permits and licenses, Musk told analysts during an October earnings call that Tesla is developing an app that will allow employees to request rides anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. ” has already been constructed,” he said.

Bullish investors expect Tesla to deliver on its self-driving technology promises as early as next year, but critics remain skeptical after Mr. Musk repeatedly missed deadlines with his robotaxis. .

Tesla currently sells driver assistance systems that include a standard Autopilot option and a premium paid option called Full Self-Driving Supervision. In its communications with government agencies, Tesla refers to these systems that are not compatible with robotaxis as “partially automated” systems. Tesla says in the fine print of its EV manual that FSD and Autopilot require a human driver to be at the wheel and available to steer or brake at any time.

This year Tesla corresponded to Austin officials weighed in on their safety expectations for self-driving technology.

Mr. Musk has repeatedly portrayed regulations as an obstacle to Tesla’s ability to bring self-driving cars to U.S. roads. During Tesla’s October 23 earnings call, Musk said he would use his influence over current President-elect Donald Trump to establish a “federal approval process for self-driving cars.”

However, AV policy expert Bryant Walker Smith said, rejected the concept of The regulation curtailed the robotaxi business at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet Society post. “AVs can and are lawfully deployed and regulated under existing federal law,” Walker-Smith wrote, citing Waymo as an example.

Zoox’s “toaster” gets hot

Long before Tesla unveiled its RoboVan and CyberCab designs, Zoox received a key permit in February of this year in Foster City, California, allowing it to carry civilians in its self-driving cars.

Zoox, founded in 2014 and acquired by Amazon in 2020 in a deal worth about $1.3 billion, has developed a unique self-driving shuttle with large side windows, inward-facing seats and no steering wheel.I, driver’s seat or traditional windshield.

In March, Zoox expanded the environmental conditions its AVs can handle on public roads to include “driving at night, in light rain or wet road conditions, and at speeds up to 45 mph,” a spokesperson told CNBC. spoke.

The company’s vehicles can comfortably carry four adults and luggage, and the small shuttles are equipped with subdued lighting, ambient music, and interior cameras to monitor what’s happening inside the vehicle. Some early riders described the appearance of Zoox vehicles as follows:futuristic hot dog toaster” or “Toaster on wheels.”

Zoox, led by CEO Aicha Evans, aims to bring free rides to more members of the public early next yearbefore making it available to paying customers or the general public.

The service will launch in Las Vegas and expand to San Francisco, the company told CNBC. It starts with an early rider program called Zoox Explorers, which allows selected users to ride Zoox for free and provide feedback.

Robotaxis are currently operating on public roads in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Foster City, and Zoox also began operating this summer. test Test vehicles are still running in Austin and Miami.

The company is also attracting senior talent. One recent notable hire was Zheng High SchoolHe previously led the Autopilot hardware design team at Tesla and is currently Director of Hardware Engineering at Zoox.

cruise closure

Despite clear demand for robotaxi rides in the U.S. market, GM announced earlier this month that it was exiting the business, surprising some longtime industry observers.

“Cruise was well on its way to becoming a robotaxi business, but the fact that we’re rolling out a fleet… , In order to do that, we need the overall management part.”

The Detroit automaker will now focus on developing what it calls “personal autonomous vehicles” rather than robotaxis. GM has not yet determined how many of Cruise’s 2,300 employees will move to the broader technology team.

“It used to be unclear, but now it’s clear: GM is a bunch of dummies,” said Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, who sold Cruise to GM in 2016 and left the company in November 2023. Ta. Posted in X After the automaker announced its withdrawal.

Cruise, an early entrant into the U.S. robotaxis market, discontinued driverless operations in October 2023, shortly before Vogt left. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fined Cruise $1.5 million after the company failed to disclose details of a serious accident involving a pedestrian that same month.

An independent investigation into the accident ordered by GM and Cruise found that cultural issues, incompetence and poor leadership contributed to the accident.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the exact amount of self-driving trips Waymo completes each year.