The Data on Self-Driving Cars Is Clear
Waymo starts driverless testing in 3 new cities, Elon Musk says it’s ok to text and drive on FSD, and Uber and Avride roll out robotaxis in Dallas with safety drivers
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Top Story of the Week
Uber and Avride launch robotaxi service in Dallas (link). The service uses Avride’s self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 fleet and operates in a nine-square-mile area of Dallas that includes downtown, though rides still include a human safety driver behind the wheel for now. Uber says fully driverless operations and a wider service area are coming soon. At the moment, Uber riders who request UberX, Uber Comfort, or Uber Comfort Electric rides may be matched with an Avride robotaxi.
I was impressed with this announcement until I noticed that there’s still a human safety driver behind the wheel. This is a necessary step to launching driverless vehicles in a given city, but it’s not exactly groundbreaking. And Uber’s promo video almost feels like false advertising since the safety driver is carefully framed out. I get why they do it though, Uber’s stock shot up 3.6% on the news.
Related: The Avride fleet is growing fast! (link). This is more impressive than a safety driver behind the wheel (something Motional did in Vegas three years ago) in my opinion.
Other Stuff
Waymo begins driverless testing in a few new cities:
Houston (link). Timeline:
Dallas (link). Timeline:
7/28/25 - Waymo announced Dallas as their next city, with Avis as their fleet partner, and plans to launch public rides on the Waymo app in 2026 (link).
11/18/25 - Waymo announced plans to introduce autonomous driving in Dallas (link).
12/2/25 - Waymo announced the launch of fully autonomous testing in Dallas (4 months from first announcement).
Philadelphia (link). Timeline:
7/7/25 - Waymo announced its first road trip to Philadelphia (link).
12/3/25 - Waymo announced they’ve started autonomous testing in Philadelphia. Still no announcement of public rides launch date (4.8 months from first announcement).
The argument against Waymo has long been that it would be tough to scale into new markets quickly, but they’re proving that narrative to be false. At this point, the real limiting factor to their growth looks like the supply of vehicles.
Waymo is also expanding to Baltimore, Pittsburgh and St. Louis with manual test drives (link). The Alphabet-owned company is now either operating its robotaxis, planning to launch service or is starting to test its vehicles in 26 markets.
The Data on Self-Driving Cars Is Clear. We Have to Change Course (link, no paywall). This is a well-laid-out opinion piece from a prominent doctor making the case that since Waymos are so safe, we need to embrace them. In theory, this sounds great, but as the author himself notes, if Waymo pulls riders from public transit then there will be far less of a benefit. And there are still lots of things we can do in parallel to improve vehicle safety (speed cameras, speed governors on cars, etc — many of which I discussed with David Zipper recently on the podcast).
How will Waymo’s self-driving cars handle New Orleans potholes and parades? (link). Neat article I was quoted in, examining Waymo’s planned launch in New Orleans. I’ve heard similar concerns in every new city they plan to launch in, and there are legitimate questions about how Waymo handles the idiosyncrasies of each city, but it’s better than you’d expect and improving.
Waymo’s Self-Driving Cars Are Suddenly Behaving Like New York Cabbies (link). I’ve noticed this myself, but it’s cool to see Waymo confirm it. The cars are getting noticeably more assertive in traffic — merging, nudging, and claiming space in ways that feel a lot more “New York” than “Mountain View.”
Waymo has been trying to make its cars “confidently assertive,” says Chris Ludwick, a senior director of product management with Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet. “That was really necessary for us to actually scale this up in San Francisco, especially because of how busy it gets.”
One thing Waymo still needs to improve, though, is how its cars communicate with the world around them. That includes vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian interactions: doing the equivalent of a “go ahead” wave at a stop sign, offering a quick “thanks” wave after merging, asking another car to let them in, or even communicating with a human about a cat hiding under the vehicle (as we saw in the Kit Kat story below). Clearer intent-sharing is going to matter a lot more as these vehicles mix into busy city traffic.
Musk says new Tesla software allows texting and driving, which is illegal in most states (link).
Waymo operations persist despite Nov. 26 deadline to end overnight work in Santa Monica (link).
“At this point Waymo has not complied with our demand and we’re discussing next steps,” said Santa Monica’s Communications and Public Information Manager Lauren Howland
Deadhead miles for rideshare drivers in LA and SF seem to have ticked up a bit going into late 2025. That’s interesting when you line it up against Waymo’s deadhead miles from the latest CPUC data. AVs are getting better at routing and pickups in California, while human-driven rides look like they’re drifting the other way (link).
Some Minneapolis City Council members want to stop Waymo driverless cars (link, no paywall).
Council President Elliott Payne said the council could pass regulations for autonomous vehicles, and Council Vice President Aisha Chughtai said she would support a ban because the city shouldn’t allow experimentation with driverless vehicles on residents.
Driverless trucks could soon be headed to California highways (link).
Why D.C. hasn’t greenlit Waymo and other robotaxis (link).
Anyone want to buy a car that drives itself? (link, no paywall).
DoorDash launches Waymo delivery service in metro Phoenix (link). DoorDash customers across a 315-square-mile service area covering parts of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Chandler can now choose a Waymo car for their delivery. If you get matched with one, you just pop the trunk through the app and grab your order when it arrives.
I Used to Hate Driving. A Self-Driving Car Finally Taught Me to Let Go (link).
Why Autonomous Vehicles Must Train On Real World Data (link).
Nexar had the largest open video driving dataset on Earth. Tesla’s is bigger, but they’re not sharing it. That leaves Nexar: Ten billion miles. Real-time data. Captured via hundreds of thousands of dashcams like mine, all over the world.
What else we’re reading/listening to
How Uber Plans to Win the Self-Driving Car Race | WSJ’s Bold Names (link). An interview with Uber’s Chief Product Officer, Sachin Kansal.
The AV Market Strategist by Daniel Abreu Marques: Deep Dive: Chinese AV Player Q3/2025 Earnings Analysis (link).
Inside Tesla’s Autonomy Strategy with Farzad Mesbahi (link). Farzad is a former Tesla employee, longtime investor, and popular Tesla YouTuber. We talked about how he views the broader Tesla ecosystem, shifts in public perception, and some of the key stats and criticisms that come up around the company. We also dove into Tesla’s robotaxi plans, how its approach stacks up against Waymo’s, what the rider experience looks like, and whether pricing even matters at this stage. We also dove into Farzad’s thoughts on the rest of the AV landscape and where he thinks autonomy is headed. This is our most popular YouTube interview yet :)
We also got some Reddit love on our recent lost wallet article (link).
Cool Rides
‘First time riding Zoox today, was also free’ (link).
‘Last week in San Francisco, I experienced something that felt less like “the future” and more like a quiet infrastructure shift already underway, a fully autonomous Waymo ride’ (link).
‘First freeway Waymo ride to the office today’ (link).
AVs behaving badly
Waymo with passengers just drove into a middle of standoff (link). Even the guy on the ground was confused 🤣
Waymo robotaxi hits dog in San Francisco weeks after killing beloved cat (link).
Related: New Footage Shows the Moment a Waymo Killed a Bodega Cat (link). The Waymo drove off a little too quickly for my comfort and it seems to me that a human driver would have waited until all was clear. Or got out and chatted with the bar patron who was trying to help the cat.
Videos show Waymo vehicles illegally passing Austin school buses 19 times this year (link).
Related: Waymo responds to safety concerns amid investigation into incidents caught on school bus cameras (link).
‘Hmmm, so this lot flooded but the Waymo still drove in it. I mean, it managed it fine but I was a bit concerned at first’ (link). Seems like Waymo still has a problem with flooded roads.
Neat Jobs
Fleet Infrastructure Manager at Moove (link) via Ming Maa.
Master Scheduler at Tesla (link) via Mark Davey.
IAM Engineer Intern at Zoox (link) via Natalie B.
University Recruiter at Waymo (link) via Kathleen R.
Sr. Software Engineer, Data Platform, Cell Software at Tesla (link) via Jingwei Kang.
Fullstack Software Engineer, Labeling Infrastructure at Waymo (link) via Khoa Vo.
Engineering Manager, Mobile Developer Experience at DoorDash (link) via Gergely Nemeth.
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.
Shout-outs
Big thanks to TDD readers Tim M, Paul N, Layne V, and Tess P 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
Really sharp catch on the Uber/Avride framing issue with safety drivers still onboard. The point about Waymo's rapid city expansion dismantling the scaling critique is spot on, what's emerging is less about tehcnology limitations and more about vehicle supply constraints. The comparison between deadhead miles for AVs vs human drivers is a massively underappreciated effeciency signal that will compound as fleet optimization improves.