Andrew J. Hawkins

The system works to save fuel by cutting off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop at a red light, for example. Automakers were incentivized at add the feature by off-cycle credits from the federal government. But now those credits are gone, and the auto industry is likely to start phasing the feature out. Lee Zeldin claims it will save “$1.3 trillion,” but good luck spending it while the world burns.

Since Waymo doesn’t have a vehicle with automatic doors, it has to pay on gig workers for help. (The Washington Post covered this phenomenon recently.) Just another example of the invisible human labor that’s required to keep these autonomous systems afloat.

Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told Bloomberg the robotaxi company was on track to reach the 1 million weekly rides milestone by the end of 2026. The company is currently provides about 400,000 rides per week across six US cities. Waymo just announced that its sixth-generation vehicle is going to start accepting passengers in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Chinese automotive publication Gasgoo says the new companies are in talks to dramatically increase Waymo’s fleet of Hyundai EVs. The deal could be worth around $2.5 billion, assuming $50,000 per vehicle. But even if the report is true, don’t expect Waymo’s robotaxi fleet to suddenly grow by 50,000: the company has said it plans on adding only 2,000 more vehicles in 2026, for a total fleet size of 3,500. Waymo is currently testing and validating the Ioniq 5 and the Zeekr RT as its next two robotaxis.