I never thought I'd type these words, but here goes: Alphabet's self-driving car bet is... working?
Waymo just hit 250,000 paid robotaxi rides weekly across America, up from 200,000 in February. Let that sink in for a sec. While most of Google's parent company's moonshots burn cash faster than a Silicon Valley startup at a WeWork, Waymo seems to be—dare I say it—delivering.
It's one of those moments that sneaks up on you. Like, weren't we just laughing about how self-driving cars were perpetually five years away? (We were.) Yet somehow, when nobody was looking, the future rolled up curbside and started charging fares.
I've covered transportation tech since 2018, and the pattern was always the same: bold predictions followed by missed deadlines, technical setbacks, and carefully worded press releases about "pivoting strategies." But Waymo broke the pattern.
What makes this particularly fascinating is the competitive moat they've dug. Think about it—over a decade mapping streets inch by inch, perfecting their lidar approach (those weird spinning things on top of the cars), and sweet-talking regulators in city after city. That's not something you can replicate overnight, even with unlimited funding.
The competitive landscape? Brutal.
Tesla keeps promising full self-driving is just around the corner. (It's not.) During their last earnings call, Musk took shots at Waymo's approach as "very expensive" and "low volume"—which, honestly, is a bit rich coming from someone whose autonomous promises have been checks his technology can't cash. It's like criticizing someone for using a boat while you're still trying to convince people that your submarine with screen doors will definitely work soon.
Look, what's particularly interesting is how Pichai admitted they haven't "entirely defined its long-term business model." Translation: we're figuring this out as we go, but hey, it's working! Alphabet has options on the table—run their own fleet, license to carmakers, partner with Uber (already happening), or sell directly to consumers.
That's the luxury of being first with something that actually, y'know, functions. While competitors are debugging their pedestrian detection systems, Waymo's debating which revenue stream to prioritize first.
Pichai's comment that "we can't possibly do it all ourselves" struck me as unusually humble for a tech giant. After years of Silicon Valley types proclaiming they'd disrupt everything from hotels to dog walking, this feels like... maturity? Building partnerships across ride-hailing, manufacturing, and maintenance creates an ecosystem that could speed up adoption while sharing the load.
(Full disclosure: I tried a Waymo ride in Phoenix last year. Eeriest fifteen minutes of my life, watching that steering wheel turn itself while the car perfectly navigated a left turn that gives human drivers fits.)
What I appreciate most about their approach is the incremental rollout. No grandstanding, no "disruption"—just steady expansion from Phoenix to San Francisco to Los Angeles to Austin. Each new city represents careful calculation about where the tech is ready for primetime.
Meanwhile, the competition keeps... well, dying. Remember Cruise? GM's self-driving unit suspended operations after that horrific incident where one of their vehicles dragged a pedestrian. Or Argo AI? Ford and Volkswagen poured billions into it before shutting it down in 2022. The autonomous vehicle graveyard grows while Waymo quietly builds something resembling a real business.
All this happens while Waymo remains buried in Alphabet's "Other Bets" financial reporting. It shares financial statements with Verily (healthcare stuff), Wing (drone delivery), and my personal favorite, Calico (literally trying to solve death). This means we don't know if Waymo's profitable, but 250,000 paid rides weekly ain't peanuts.
The fascinating part? We might be witnessing a winner-take-most market forming in real time. Network effects, data advantages, regulatory relationships—everything favors early leaders. If Waymo maintains its edge, it could become one of Alphabet's crown jewels rather than another science project burning cash indefinitely.
So maybe the transportation future isn't arriving with the jetpacks and flying cars we were promised. Instead, it's showing up as a methodically mapped, heavily regulated, lidar-equipped minivan that doesn't need a human driver.
And y'know what? That's still pretty damn impressive.
