Waymo seeks $15B edge as Tesla goes driverless

Waymo wants to pull in $15 billion next year as it pushes to expand its driverless taxi operations. The money’s expected from Alphabet, its parent company, plus outside investors betting on the tech.

If the deal goes through, it’d value Waymo at $110 billion. That’s a massive jump and shows just how dominant the company’s become in America’s robotaxi race. The cash will help fund an aggressive expansion that’s already burning through serious money.

Waymo’s currently got operations, upcoming launches, or active testing in 26 cities worldwide. On Tuesday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Waymo should start meaningfully contributing to the company’s bottom line by 2027.

This funding round would bring in over twice what Waymo raised last time. That was back in October 2024, a $5.6 billion series C at a $45 billion valuation. Alphabet committed $5 billion as part of a multi-year investment then.

Several big names backed that round alongside Alphabet: Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. Waymo’s co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov said at the time they’d use it to scale up the service.

Service already active in five major cities

Right now, you can catch a paid Waymo ride in Austin, the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. Business is growing fast. Earlier this month, reports showed Waymo’s doing around 450,000 paid rides weekly. The company said in December it’s completed 14 million trips in 2025 so far, which puts it on track to cross 20 million total rides since starting in 2020.

Next year looks even busier. Waymo’s planning to launch in 11 additional US cities: Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Waymo will also expand to London in 2026, the company’s first international market, as reported by Cryptopolitan previously,

Tesla and Zoox work to catch up

Tesla’s been working to catch up. About six months back, the company started a limited robotaxi service in Austin with safety drivers inside. Now Elon Musk posted on X over the weekend that testing’s underway “with no occupants in the car.”

Musk has spent over a decade promising that Tesla vehicles would become fully self-driving robotaxis capable of operating without human supervision.

Then there’s Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi unit. The company launched free rides this year around the Las Vegas Strip and in some San Francisco neighborhoods. Jesse Levinson, Zoox’s cofounder and CTO, told a conference crowd in San Francisco that paid rides should start in Las Vegas early next year. San Francisco’s paid service will come later in 2026. Both depend on getting the necessary federal and state approvals first.

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