Zoox Looks to Take On Waymo in San Francisco
Tesla gets approval to launch robotaxis in Arizona, Waymo begins driverless rides in five new markets, and new NYC bill could link AV licenses to taxi medallions
My annual Curbivore conference is coming up on April 17, 2026 in Downtown LA! And we’ve got the best deal for TDD readers 😋
Top Stories of the Week
Zoox begins offering robotaxi rides in San Francisco, facing off with Waymo (link). Select riders who join the “Zoox Explorers” program can take free rides in SoMa, the Mission, and the Design District. Zoox says it will pull more people off the waitlist as it expands its fleet, with the goal of removing the waitlist entirely in 2026.
This is exciting news, especially since I’ve been waiting for the day Waymo gets some real competition. The only caveat here: the rides are still free. In California, Zoox is operating under a pilot program rather than full commercial deployment, and it hasn’t yet secured the regulatory approvals needed to charge fares across the state.
Related: Self-Driving Taxis Are Catching On. Are You Ready? (link, no paywall).
Waymo is bringing fully autonomous driving to five more cities (link). Driverless testing has already started in Miami and will roll out to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando in the coming weeks, with public rides planned for 2026. 5 cities at once is a big deal and it’s clear that Waymo is accelerating its launch timeline for new cities. But do they have enough vehicles?
Related: Understanding AI by
and : Waymo’s next five cities are all in red states (link). NYC, Seattle, Minneapolis and Boston all have strong labor protections for drivers, so I expect Waymo to see the most pushback there from labor — and that already seems to be how it’s playing out.Other Stuff
‘Justin Brannan introduced a bill today that would effectively ban Waymo in NYC’ (link). This tweet got a lot of views but the only problem is that it’s not true. The bill doesn’t ban AVs — it simply requires the TLC to regulate and license autonomous vehicles as taxis before they can operate. That seems reasonable to me; my only issue is classifying AVs as “taxis,” since NYC has ~13k medallions versus ~100k for-hire (Uber/Lyft) licenses. It feels like an unnecessary handout to taxis, and I’m not sure why AVs wouldn’t just be regulated alongside all FHV operators.
Here’s a good breakdown of the bill from our friends at
(link).‘Waymo isn’t replacing uber-drivers… it is replacing nannies + parent-chauffeur-job … and the impact is going to be way way bigger than people realize - especially in suburban upper-middle-class’ (link). Interesting take from my long-time friend Sam Lessin, but I’m not sure I agree. A huge number of teens already ride Uber even though it’s technically against the rules, and the companies have mostly looked the other way. Some parents will definitely switch their kids to Waymo, and yes, some new rides for teens will surely happen because of AVs — but I think the medium to long-term impact on family logistics will end up being a lot smaller than Sam predicts.
Tesla gets approved to launch a ride-hailing service in Arizona (link).
Waymo is working on the 2025 Year in Review (link). I’m sure Waymo’s engineers love Jane.
China-U.S. Robotaxi Race Kicks off in U.K. (link, no paywall). Everyone is talking about London like it’s a done deal for AV launches, but have you ever been to Europe? Someone is always on strike — bus drivers, air traffic controllers, trains — and the labor groups supporting London’s taxi drivers are not going to go down quietly. My prediction: London will end up being one of Waymo’s toughest labor fights.
Kodiak AI Stock Falls After Its First Earnings Report (link).
Just claimed my $10 Waymo ride courtesy of DashPass! (link).
Rivian Vehicle Drives Two Hours Completely Autonomously, CEO Says (link). I recently swapped my Tesla Model Y for a Rivian R1S and have been telling people it’s “twice as nice, but twice the price.” The big area where Rivian still trails Tesla though is autonomy, so I’m curious to see what they reveal on December 11 at their upcoming Autonomy Day.
Waymo to begin manual drives in Minneapolis, Tampa and New Orleans, aims to open service in 2026 (link).
90% of robotaxi trips have 2 or less passengers, so why are we using 5-seater vehicles? (link).
Waymos should crack the windows between rides (link).
Robot threat to drivers’ jobs in China heralds wider shift (link, no paywall). It will be interesting to see how China manages its labor force, especially if the AV transition plays out more acutely there. I’ve also been having conversations with smart folks in the US about potential policies to help ease the transition — stay tuned.
‘For anyone who’s ever driven on a freeway anywhere, but especially in California, this is gonna be completely wild: “Waymo will stay at or below 65 miles per hour, ‘following flow of traffic,’ “but sometimes it might go to say, 68’ (link).
‘Tesla is battling with Waymo and Uber to shape California’s new robotaxi rules’ (link). The title is pretty accurate here and I’d like to see Tesla report data to the CPUC just like Waymo is required to do. Then we would know more about their trip count, fleet size and utilization.
Waymo teams up with LA Metro to provide discounts on autonomous rides for Mobility Wallet program participants and to expand transportation options for all Angelenos (link).
How will Boston deal with the arrival of autonomous vehicles? (link). One interesting idea raised was requiring Waymo to price rides higher in transit-rich areas and lower in transit deserts. Jeffrey Tumlin also noted several areas where Waymo can still improve — from interactions with emergency responders to handling true emergency scenarios like earthquakes, or those extremely rare cases where the 5G network drops or the entire fleet goes offline.
Terawatt opened a new charging hub in Rialto, CA built for heavy-duty electric trucks (link) — adding a large set of high-power, pull-through chargers in one of the country’s busiest freight corridors. We need a lot more sites like this if heavy-duty electrification is going to keep up with real-world freight demand.
Some city leaders push back on Waymo coming to San Diego (link).
Tesla Robotaxi had 3 more crashes, now 7 total (link).
Waymo at LA AUTO SHOW (link).
What else we’re reading/listening to
What CPUC Data Reveals About Waymo’s Deadheading and Utilization (link).
Autonomous System Safety by
: New Tesla FSD safety data (link).Robotaxis and Suburbia (link) by Ben Thompson.
Car Charts by
: The Impact of Ridehail on Car Ownership (link). Uber and Lyft definitely promised to reduce car ownership, and they have made car-free living possible in places like LA — I know a few people who’ve done it. But the real barrier has always been cost. Ridehail is reliable but expensive compared to the sunk cost of owning a car. Until prices come way down (think AVs…), you need a mix of mobility options: ridehail/AVs at the top, plus public transit, micromobility (shared may be dying but personal e-bikes are booming in beach communities), car-sharing for longer trips, etc.Related: No, Robotaxis Won’t Mean the End of Car Ownership (link) by
in .Uncapped with Jack Altman: Uncapped #32 | Kyle Vogt from The Bot Company (link). Jump to the 38:41 mark for a good breakdown of Tesla vs. Waymo. Kyle’s view is that Tesla essentially figured out how to sell a product before cracking self-driving, using those sales to fund its AV R&D. Waymo’s model is the opposite — extremely capital-intensive and really only feasible for companies with a massive war chest, like Amazon with Zoox.
We’re delighted to announce that Curbivore is returning on April 17th, 2026 to Downtown Los Angeles. We’re building out a curb-centric city within a city, where you can check out some of the latest autonomous vehicle innovations shaping curbside operations, demo the delivery technologies of tomorrow, meet with mobility’s brightest minds, indulge in the street food that’s rewriting the rules for how we think about public spaces, and hear from the leaders reshaping curbside commerce.
For a very limited time, get $25 off our already low, Super Early Bird pricing using the code “DRIVERLESS”, through this link.
Cool Rides
‘I’ve taken Waymo plenty of times… but last night hit differently’ (link).
‘When Waymo has the wheel… 🎶🎷🚙🗺️🧭🤘🏼’ (link).
‘Did a 5-hour Waymo ride’ (link).
‘I’m in San Francisco this week for Microsoft Ignite, and I have a confession: I’m officially a Waymo convert after my first ride’ (link).
AVs/Humans behaving badly
‘Tesla Robotaxi Safety Driver falls asleep at the wheel’ (link). Well I guess that’s one way to go from supervised to unsupervised rides..
‘Somebody tagged our Waymo just before dropoff’ (link).
‘This has to be the craziest thing ever, you have to call Zoox support if you want to cancel a ride’ (link). Guarantee the PM who came up with this used to work at WSJ 🤣
‘Rider tries to fit 5 people in a Waymo’ (link). Busted lol. Situations like this are going to happen a lot — too many riders, alcohol, you name it. Waymo will probably lean on AI here: if the exterior cameras see five people piling in, the car can shut it down before the ride even starts.
‘Waymo picking up passengers in the middle of an intersection’ (link).
Neat Jobs
Multiple roles in Software Engineering at Waymo, via Daphne P.
General Manager, Autonomous Vehicle Depot Operations at Moove (link) via Ming Maa.
Senior Manager, Manufacturing Systems at Zoox (link) via Mahesh Pandey.
Silicon Validation Engineer, Advanced DRAM at Waymo (link) via JayaSubramanian Sundaresan.
Firmware & C++ Development Intern at Zoox (link) via Prabhu Chinnaiah.
Multiple Mechanical Engineering roles at Tesla, via Justin Vanness.
Financial Analyst, Finance Operations/Tactical Planning at Zoox (link) via Mike Garrote.
You can check out our brand new AV Job board where we’ll posting all of the jobs we feature (link). If people like it, I will find a way to code it into something prettier :)
Shout-outs
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Until next week.
-Harry