Self-driving cars: Google and others map the road to automated vehicles – The Verge

Most people still don’t want anything to do with robotaxis

2026-04-20T16:05:13-04:00

I've been reporting on self-driving cars for over a decade, and I've seen the technology go through many ups and downs, highs and lows. But one thing has remained remarkably the same over the years: the public just ain't buying it.

Poll after poll has revealed a deep and abiding skepticism toward autonomous vehicles. People don't trust the technology, don't want to ride in cars without human drivers - even when the evidence suggests the vehicle could be much safer than a human driver. Sure, robotaxis are operating in about a dozen cities now, and companies like Waymo don't seem to have any problems finding customers. But when you expand th …

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Waymo says it will add 2,000 more robotaxis into 2026

2025-05-05T14:56:12-04:00

A Waymo robotaxi being assembled at the company’s factory in Mesa, Arizona. | Image: Waymo

Waymo said it recently received its last delivery of Jaguar I-Pace SUVs, which will be retrofitted with sensors and autonomous driving technology at its factory in Arizona, before joining its robotaxi fleet.

In a blog post published today, the Alphabet company said it currently has 1,500 Jaguars operating across its four main markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. And it plans on adding 2,000 more vehicles into 2026, for a total fleet size of 3,500. The company recently hit an average of 250,000 paid passenger trips per week.

Waymo typically doesn't like to comment on the size of its fleet, so today's announcement provi …

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Surge pricing, the scourge of ridehailing, is evolving for the robotaxi era

2025-04-18T16:49:15-04:00

It's a familiar frustration for ridehail users: you open the Uber or Lyft app, enter your destination, and discover that your intended trip costs several times more than expected. The culprit is surge pricing, one of ridehail's most important and controversial innovations. Customers grumble about higher fares, but Uber and Lyft executives have insisted that surge pricing benefits them by attracting additional drivers, which allows the companies to fulfill more trips and reduce wait times.

That justification makes intuitive sense, but it raises an awkward question about robotaxis, which are expanding across the US, from San Jose, California …

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Waymo is now offering 24/7 robotaxi rides in Silicon Valley

2025-03-12T12:02:33-04:00

Waymo is kicking off the process of making its robotaxi service in Silicon Valley commercially available to everyone. The company announced today that its ridehailing app Waymo One will now be available 24/7 to certain customers across a 27-square-mile service area in California that includes Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and parts of Sunnyvale.

Previously, Waymo's autonomous vehicles were only accessible to the company's employees for trips across Silicon Valley, which includes Google and Waymo's respective headquarters. That contrasts with Waymo's publicly available, 24/7 robotaxi service a few miles north in San Francisco.

Initi …

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Waymo is now available exclusively on Uber in Austin

2025-03-03T16:23:34-05:00

The vehicles will be co-branded with both companies’ logos. | Image: Uber

Today's the day: Waymo's unlikely partnership with Uber is now live in Austin, Texas. The former rivals have joined forces in the hopes of accelerating the transition to autonomous vehicles, and as of today, any Austin resident with a desire to take a trip in a fully driverless robotaxi can open their Uber app and hail away.

But, of course, there are some limitations.

Waymo only operates within a 37-square-mile area in Austin, which includes Hyde Park, Downtown, Montopolis, and other "popular destinations," according to the company. So the trip will need to originate and end within that service area in order to qualify for Waymo. It also …

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The end of Cruise is the beginning of a risky new phase for autonomous vehicles

2024-12-11T14:42:22-05:00

Eight years and $10 billion later, GM has decided to pull the plug on its grand robotaxi experiment.

The automaker's CEO, Mary Barra, made the surprise announcement late on Tuesday, arguing that a shared autonomous mobility service was never really in its "core business." It was too expensive and had too many regulatory hurdles to overcome to make it a viable revenue stream. Instead, GM would pivot to "privately owned" driverless cars - because, after all, that's what the people really wanted.

"Customers like to drive," Barra said in a call with investors. "And there's times they don't like to drive."

If some of this sounds familiar, Ford …

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Cruise’s robotaxi service will shut down as GM pulls its funding

2024-12-10T16:25:58-05:00

General Motors said it would no longer fund its Cruise robotaxi service as it seeks to focus its spending on autonomous vehicle development specifically for personally owned vehicles. Now Cruise employees will be combined with GM's internal teams working on advanced driver assist systems, like Super Cruise, as well as its project to develop autonomous vehicles to sell to customers for personal use.

Ultimately, the project became too expensive for GM to justify the huge amounts of money spent to prop it up. And the automaker found it increasingly difficult to convince its shareholders that the money-losing operation would eventually pay off. …

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A nightly Waymo robotaxi parking lot honkfest is waking San Francisco neighbors

2024-08-11T18:21:03-04:00

A Waymo car out on the job. | Photo: Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images

If you've ever wondered what happens to all those self-driving taxis when the world is asleep, one YouTube channel has you covered. Since the beginning of the month, software engineer Sophia Tung has been livestreaming a San Francisco parking lot that Waymo is renting to give its robotaxis somewhere to go during their downtime.

Tung told The Verge via email that the company appeared to "partially" take over the lot on July 28th, then later took over the entire lot. Waymo recently opened up its robotaxi service to anyone in San Francisco.

Days later, she set up the livestream, complete with LoFi study beats. Tung told us she's running it …

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Waymo’s robotaxis are under investigation for crashes and traffic law violations

2024-05-14T08:53:10-04:00

Federal safety investigators have opened a preliminary investigation into dozens of incidents involving Waymo's driverless vehicles, including several "single-party" crashes and possible traffic law violations.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation is looking into 22 incidents in which Waymo's robotaxis were "the sole vehicle operated during a collision" or "exhibited driving behavior that potentially violated traffic safety laws."

INOA-PE24016-12382 by ahawkins8223

These include "collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains, collisions with parked vehicles, a …

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In the first Autonomous Racing League race, the struggle was real

2024-04-27T18:28:25-04:00

The first race of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) took place on the Yas Marina Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Formula 1 track today, and I'm pleased to report that a race both began and ended. But the event was not without strife - far from it. During qualifying time trials, the driverless Dallara Super Formula racers outfitted with cameras and software seemed to struggle mightily to complete a full lap.

During the trials, cars randomly juked:

Or spun:

Or turned into walls:

Or just pulled off the track to take a little break:

You get well-acquainted with the interstitial music during these highlights. All praise to the patience and …

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