China’s Robotaxi Leader Hits 2.2 Million Robotaxi Rides in Q2
Nuro Raises $203 Million from Uber, Nvidia, and others, Uber users are canceling human drivers until they match with a robotaxi, and Tesla takes on Waymo
This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Terawatt – purpose-built charging for autonomous vehicle fleets.
Top Stories of the Week
Baidu’s Apollo Go has now completed 14 million rides and their global footprint continues to grow - it’s now up to 16 cities. The company also poured in over 2.2 million rides in Q2 2025 (up 148% yoy), and has driven over 200M+ kilometers (link). As regular readers know, Apollo Go is a company I’ve been watching closely since they are basically the ‘Waymo of China’ but in some areas, like vehicle manufacturing, they are actually way ahead1.
Related: Here’s an official government receipt (fapiao) with a sticker price of $30,000 for their latest RT6 vehicle2 (link).
Nvidia is the latest investor to back AV startup Nuro in $203M funding round (link). This round pushes their total funding to $2.3 billion at a $6 billion valuation. Here’s a breakdown of this funding round according to a Nuro spokesperson:
On Series E
This $203 million round had several investors over two tranches.
The first tranche of Series E investors were announced in April. They were all returning investors: T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Investments, Tiger Global, Greylock Partners, and XN. Combined, they put in $106 million.
The second tranche of Series E investors were announced in the close this morning. They are returning investor Baillie Gifford and new investors Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, NVIDIA, Pledge Ventures, and Uber. Combined, they put in $97 million.
On Uber
In July’s robotaxi announcement, we disclosed that Uber plans to make a multi-hundred million dollar investment in Nuro.
Part of that investment is included in this Series E funding round.
The balance of that investment is conditioned on achieving a schedule of development and commercial milestones.
In case you missed it, I also sat down with Nuro’s COO Andrew Chapin, where we dove into the Nuro–Lucid–Uber partnership (link).
Uber users in Atlanta are canceling rides with human drivers until they match with one of Waymo's self-driving cars (link).
Uber could add a ‘Waymo only’ option to prevent this behavior but cancellations are bound to happen when there are just ‘dozens of vehicles operating in Atlanta’. I take that to mean 24, 36, or 48, which is relatively low compared to Austin’s 100 vehicles. And now we also know why the Waymo launch in ATL is off to a slow start (link).
Waymo power users only want to ride Waymo but the ‘Waymo on Uber’ experience is better for the mass market since it excludes rides outside of Waymo’s operational design domain (ODD) like freeways and airports. So your upside is limited since you may not get a Waymo every time, but your downside is also limited relative to the Waymo experience. So if there’s too long of a wait, or worse yet, no Waymos available, you can match with a human driver and still have your ride fulfilled. Reliability is table stakes in the rideshare game and Waymo still struggles with this in their first party markets.
One idea for Waymo would be to launch an ‘Uber on Waymo’ product where Waymo is the default option in markets like SF and LA, but users can opt in to get matched with a human Uber driver if the ETA is too long, or doesn’t go where they want.
Cool Rides
Australian dad overly excited to take a Waymo for the first time (link).
‘Spent a day in SF with family and instead of Lyft/Uber, my kids insisted to try out Waymo. Oh my, it shifted my worldview’ (link).
AVs/Humans behaving badly
Waymo stops at a roundabout in Scottsdale, AZ (link).
Bus collision with Waymo in San Francisco (link). Not sure how this keeps happening..
Designing Charging Hubs for Autonomous Fleets
We are excited to partner with Terawatt, one of the leading providers of charging infrastructure. To learn more about Terawatt's network of AV charging hubs and track record of 99%+ uptime, reach out to Logan Szidik at lszidik@terawattinfrastructure.com
Tesla vs Waymo
Waymo experimenting with generative AI, but exec says LiDAR and radar sensors important to self-driving safety ‘under all conditions’ (link).
Ex-Waymo CEO John Krafcik on Tesla's Robotaxis: "Please let me know when Tesla launches a robotaxi — I'm still waiting. It's (rather obviously) not a robotaxi if there's an employee inside the car." (link). That’s a fair assessment and I do find it funny when folks congratulate Tesla for expanding their operating zone despite not operating a true robotaxi service yet.
Tesla Robotaxi vs. Waymo One Comparison Test! Which Self-Driving Taxi Feels Safer? (link).
Elon Musk Has His Vision. Waymo Chief Tekedra Mawakana Says She’s Got a Better One (link, no paywall).
Other Stuff
Zoox taps ex-Uber Pool exec’s startup for routing software help (link). This was interesting news. I’ve always been skeptical of shared rides since drivers hate them and customers don’t love being matched with other riders either. But now there are no drivers to complain and AVs in theory should be much cheaper than human rideshare. So you could argue that AV shared rides could compete with public transit, a cohort that is used to sharing rides. And the AV experience would be much better since it would be more direct and only 6-8 passengers. Not a good thing for cities and congestion though.
‘It’s a big headline — Waymo has completed 100 million driverless miles, without a fatality. What makes this such a milestone is that this is approximately the average number of miles between there being a fatality, with humans driving’ (link). It’s amazing to think that Waymo has driven 100 million miles without a fatality but that doesn’t statistically show superiority to a human driver. It turns out, humans are actually pretty good drivers. We just drive a ton of miles and thus, have so many annual road deaths. I think it’s fair to be cautiously optimistic as to Waymo’s safety record since we still have many more miles to go.
The Kayak Of Rideshare: Obi’s New CEO Charts A Course For Rideshare Pricing Transparency And AV Growth (link, no paywall).
What Is The Robotaxi Vision That’s Worth Trillions? (link, no paywall).
How Waymo went from secret Google project to dominant robotaxi company (link).
Morphing menu by Waymo (link).
Tesla drivers can pursue class action over self-driving claims, judge rules (link).
TDD in the News
I was a guest on
’s Shift Podcast on Automotive News (link), where we dove into all things rideshare and autonomy. We talked about the Lucid–Uber–Nuro robotaxi partnership, Uber’s open-arms AV strategy, and Waymo’s scaling challenges. We also explored the international robotaxi market, especially what’s happening in China, and discussed where Lyft fits into the future AV landscape, among other topics.What else we're reading/listening to
Autonomous System Safety by
: Independence and Safety (link).Investing in the Future of Mobility with Ross Gerber (link). My latest podcast episode is with Ross Gerber, co-founder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki, a Los Angeles-based investment firm managing over $1.5 billion in assets. We discussed lessons from the early days of ridesharing, and the intersection of rideshare and autonomy. We touched on the Waymo vs Uber debate, and why a 100% robotaxi world is not feasible. We also dove into Uber’s AV platform approach and the current ridesharing TAM among many other topics.
Neat Jobs
Vice President - National Head of Construction at Terawatt (link).
Systems Engineer - Networks and Architecture at Waymo (link) via Stephan Heinrich.
Functional Safety System Engineer at Wayve (link) via Boris TSUKERMAN.
Marketing Analytics Manager at Waymo (link) via Jessica Kozesnik.
Shout-outs
Big thanks to TDD reader Carl for referring new subscribers. If there's someone you think would enjoy TDD, just forward this email to them or use the referral button below.
Until next week.
-Harry
The tweet is from last year's Apollo Go Day - May 2024
Great article!! One small thing, I thought Waymo has only officially launched in 5 cities?