Tesla Robotaxis Go Driverless in Austin

Waymo in talks to raise $15 bn at ~$100 bn valuation, Lyft CEO Says AVs won’t replace human drivers anytime soon, and Lidar-maker Luminar files for bankruptcy

This week’s edition is brought to you by Terawatt – purpose-built charging for autonomous vehicle fleets.

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Top Story of the Week

Tesla stock closes at 2025 high after Musk confirms driverless Robotaxi tests underway in Austin (link). Elon confirmed Tesla Robotaxis were indeed carrying out driverless testing in Austin after reports of multiple sightings.

Cool to see this, even if it’s currently limited to just two cars. The real story to watch though is whether Tesla can scale quickly. Waymo now operates 200 vehicles in Austin after starting with 100, and Tesla will need to reach that 100–200 vehicle range before this starts to look like a real commercial effort rather than a demo.

Waymo Seeking Over $15 Billion Near $100 Billion Valuation (link, no paywall). The company is reportedly in early talks to raise a round led by their parent company Alphabet Inc. The proposed valuation would be more than double their current $45 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the discussions.

This would be a massive round for Waymo, but the number that stood out to me was the reported $350 million annual revenue run rate. Using the roughly 450,000 trips per week figure from last week, that works out to about 23.4 million trips per year, or roughly $15 in revenue per trip¹.

Using Obi’s data, which puts Waymo’s average fare closer to $20, the implied annual run rate would be about $468 million.

Other Stuff

There is ‘zero likelihood’ self-driving cars will replace human drivers in any reasonable timeframe, Lyft’s CEO says (link, no paywall). Part of me actually agrees with Mr. Risher here. Even with real progress from Waymo and others, the jump from a few dense urban markets to nationwide coverage is massive. Costs will come down over time and the technology will continue to improve, but frankly, there are still a lot of unknowns around scaling, economics, and consumer adoption, and human drivers remain far more flexible and scalable. Mainstream adoption of AVs is likely to be gradual rather than explosive.

“That will be the case for years and years and years to come,” he said. The [car manufacturers] aren’t entirely ready. The technology isn’t entirely ready for fog or snow or heavy rain or whatever it is. People, riders aren’t necessarily excited about it [and] regulators aren’t necessarily enthusiastic about it in every place,” he said.

Waymo surpasses 20 million lifetime driverless rides (link).

CEO of self-driving truck company rejects Teamsters demand for human operators (link).

Robotaxis could wreck parking revenue, airport official warns (link). I’m not sure Des Moines needs to worry about this anytime soon but this could be a concern for LAX and SFO. The problem is one of geometry though, there just isn’t enough curb space for all the passenger vehicles that want to get in and out of the terminal. Airports need a solution like decongestion pricing if they want to have an impact here².

Waymo and Tesla’s self-driving systems are more similar than people think (link).

Conventional wisdom holds that Waymo has a dramatically different approach. Many people — especially Tesla fans — believe that Tesla’s self-driving technology is based on cutting-edge, end-to-end AI models, while Waymo still relies on a clunky collection of handwritten rules. But that’s not true — or at least it greatly exaggerates the differences.

Autonomous Vehicles in Cities: What’s to Come in 2026 (link).

Waymo prepares to launch self-driving cars in Las Vegas in summer 2026 (link)

‘I teared up a little. Look at that baby go. First city outside of the US’ (link).

‘Holy Waymo markup! Gigantic difference between Lyft and Waymo. One of the biggest I’ve seen’ (link). We know that Waymo is typically 30–40% more expensive than Uber and Lyft, but during peak times the gap can be even more pronounced. Waymo’s only real lever to manage demand is higher pricing. Uber and Lyft, on the other hand, use surge pricing to lure more drivers onto the road and increase supply.

NYC DOT renews Waymo’s testing permit in NYC until March 31, 2026 (link).

Tesla would have to rein in FSD under new Democratic bill (link, no paywall).

Waymo Safety Hub Update Features Data From 127 Million Fully Autonomous Miles (link).

Waymo seat adjustment feature (link). Now this is the feature I’ve been waiting for! As someone who is 6’ 3” I typically move the front seat all the way back when I’m riding solo in the front seat. And when I’m riding in the back with a friend, I move the front seat all the way up. Will be nice to set the preference before getting into the car or have it saved.

Tesla engaged in deceptive marketing for Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, judge rules (link). I love FSD but the product is anything but ‘Full Self Driving’ so this seems like a fair punishment.

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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

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What else we’re reading/listening to

Ottomate by Jonah Bliss: Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Maps - But Maybe a Little Help from AI (link).

Robonomics by FD: Waymo | Update 2025.12 (link).

The AV Market Strategist by Daniel Abreu Marques: Bolt's 100,000 Robotaxi Ambition, Waymo Hits 450k Weekly Rides, Tesla driver-out in 3 weeks? (link). Really interesting deep dive on the chip landscape:

The market has consolidated around three major players and a handful of specialists, but the competitive dynamics are shifting rapidly as chip suppliers evolve from hardware vendors into integrated hardware-software platform providers.

Stratechery by Ben Thompson: An Interview with Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe About Building a Car Company and Autonomy (link). Quite candid interview where RJ dives deep into the company’s autonomy strategy and why Rivian is going all-in on vertical integration. He explains the shift away from older rules-based self-driving systems toward end-to-end neural networks, and why Rivian builds its own sensors, chips, and software, among other things.

Tech in Focus, A Conversation with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (link). You can jump to the 11:00 timestamp where the interview with Dara begins. Dara discusses Uber’s robotaxi push in the Middle East and Asia, and says he expects Uber to offer robotaxi services in over 10 markets by the end of next year, including Asia. And these will involve foreign players like Baidu WeRide and Pony.ai.

Robotaxi Lessons From San Francisco With Jeffrey Tumlin (link). My latest podcast episode with Jeffrey Tumlin, a 30-year transportation veteran and former head of the SFMTA. We talked about SF’s role as a proving ground for new mobility tech, the city’s turning point with AV deployment, and how traffic incidents are tracked. We also dug into the cultural friction between cities and AV operators, what companies could do to make early rollouts less chaotic, lessons from rideshare’s impact on congestion, and what the collapse of Cruise reveals about the challenges ahead.

AVs/Humans behaving badly

Waymo Paralyzed by Parade, Blocks Traffic for 45 Minutes (link).

‘They should have kept the safety drivers a bit longer’ (link).

‘Waymo drove onto the course of the Phoenix Marathon.’ (link).

I know Waymo is up to around 450,000 trips per week now, so this is still a small sample size, but it does feel like we’re seeing more issues surface each week.

‘Waymo’s wild ride (link).’ I kind of liked this move lol.

A TikTok influencer got into a Waymo accident - Waymo not at fault (link).

‘Waymo Runs a Red Light in East Austin’ (link). Reading through the comments, this looks more like a right turn on red at an unusually shaped intersection. I’m not sure whether it was technically legal, but it’s probably the same call many human drivers would have made.

Announcements/Partnerships/Fundraising

Serve Robotics Builds 2,000 Autonomous Delivery Robots, Creating Largest Sidewalk Delivery Fleet in the U.S. (link).

Lidar-maker Luminar files for bankruptcy (link, no paywall).

As part of its bankruptcy, Luminar is seeking permission to sell both its lidar and semiconductor businesses, the latter of which it has already agreed to sell to Quantum Computing for $110 million. The company plans to continue to operate during the bankruptcy proceedings “to minimize disruptions and maintain delivery of its LiDAR hardware and software.”

‘Just a friendly reminder that we invest $1-8M in early-stage mobility, logistics, and manufacturing startups. If you’re kicking off your raise in Q1 next year, then we’d love to chat!’ via Jeff Peters.

Neat Jobs

Demand Operations Program Manager - Texas at Waymo (link) via Sarah Basham.

Multiple logistics roles at Zoox, via Alex Moraros.

Senior UX Researcher, Rider Experience at Waymo (link) via Megan Neese.

Cell Recycling Engineering Technician at Tesla (link) via Alexander Miller.

Team Lead, Global Construction & Facilities Procurement at Waymo (link) via Jerome Arfeli.

Multiple open positions at Motional (link) via David Carroll.

You can check out our new AV job board where we post all of the roles we feature (link). If people like it, I will find a way to turn it into something a bit prettier.

Cool Rides

‘Waymo Freeway Ride to SFO Kiss & Fly’ (link).

‘By riding in a driverless Uber in Austin powered by Waymo, you’re experiencing the future of mobility today’ (link).

‘Freeway Rainy Ride’ (link).

Shout-outs

Big thanks to TDD readers David Z, Christian L, and Jason 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

1. Annualizing 450,000 trips per week, gives us ~23.4 million trips per year. Dividing the reported $350 million annual revenue run rate by the estimated yearly trips, we get an estimated revenue of $15/trip

2. If interested, here’s a report I did on ridehailing at LAX that still holds up pretty well: https://therideshareguy.com/new-report-released-on-ride-hailing-at-lax/