Waymo’s Robotaxi Vision Clears $110B as Alphabet Cuts the Biggest Check in the Room… to Itself

While Elon schemes up another way to bait and switch Tesla bros into thinking the robotaxi is finally here (read: claims no humans in cars anymore but moves that supervisor to another car following the robotaxi)...

Waymo’s actually live in too many cities to count on both hands… and now they’re pushing to really put the pressure on Donald Trump’s ex BFF.

(Source: Financial Times)

According to people familiar with the deal (translation: folks who’ve actually seen the cap table), Waymo is finalizing a $16 billion funding round that pegs the self-driving unit at a $110 billion valuation. That’s more than double where it was last year… and yes, that sound you hear is every “robotaxis are 10 years away” take getting reverse over the curb.

Now here’s the fun part: Alphabet is footing more than three-quarters of that $16B themselves. Which means this isn’t some hype-driven VC FOMO round. This is Google looking at its own creation and saying, “Yeah, we’ll happily pay $110B for this… from ourselves.” If that ain’t the definition of eating your own dog food, I don’t know what is.

New money is still showing up, though. Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Dragoneer, DST Global, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala (obviously) are all writing checks too. The round was reportedly 3x oversubscribed, which in VC-speak means “everyone wanted in and someone got mad they couldn’t.”

Waymo’s annual recurring revenue is now north of $350 million, and that number is climbing as the company ramps rides in San Francisco, LA, Phoenix, and Miami. Management says they expect to hit 1 million rides per week this year. That’s not “cool demo” territory anymore. That’s transportation business territory.

They’ve already logged 125 million fully autonomous miles with relatively few safety incidents… and that phrase matters, because safety is where this whole fight gets decided.

Which brings us to the elephant tweeting in the room…

Tesla has launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin and is promising a steering-wheel-free Cybercab soon (trademark pending). But there’s a pretty big gap between excitement and reality here.

Waymo runs Level 4 autonomy, which simply means there’s no driver, babysitting, or “hands on the wheel, eyes on the road” disclaimers. Tesla’s system is still Level 2, which legally means the human is responsible… even when the software screws up.

That distinction matters a lot when lawsuits start flying… and Tesla already got tagged with a $243 million judgment tied to a fatal Autopilot crash in Florida.

(Source: CNBC)

Waymo, meanwhile, is running lidar, cameras, detailed maps, and a tech stack that (at least for now) isn’t killing people… or at least not as many.

They’re also expanding globally… testing in London and Tokyo, prepping New York, and cutting costs by rolling out new vehicles like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and a larger van built by Zeekr. They’ve even partnered with Uber in secondary markets, which is about as pragmatic as it gets.

And that’s really the point. While the market argues about whether robotaxis are “five years away” or “next quarter,” Waymo is already picking people up, dropping them off, and collecting data like Warren Buffett in his prime collected compound interest.

It doesn’t even feel like a hot take anymore to proclaim Waymo the winner of the robotaxi race before some companies even get a working product. Especially with Tesla continuing to try to trick investors into thinking their cybertaxi is almost here.

Nothing much to say other than… your move, Elon.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla, Google, and Uber as mentioned in the article.