Waymo — Waymo suspended all freeway rides (San Francisco, LA, Phoenix, Miami) to improve construction-zone handling, after recalling 3,791 vehicles over flooded-roadway incidents — a notable safety pullback on its hardest driving domain.
China (MIIT) / Baidu — After 100+ Baidu Apollo Go robotaxis failed simultaneously in Wuhan (a cloud outage stranded riders up to two hours), China suspended all new autonomous-driving permits on 29 Apr 2026 — the first nationwide robotaxi licensing freeze.
Waymo leads on paid driverless rides and miles; Tesla is betting on a camera-only, mass-market path; Cruise exited in 2024. We weigh the very different strategies. (Our opinion, not investment advice.)
Cumulative rider-only miles are the experience base behind safety claims: more real, driverless miles means more rare situations seen and handled. It's the denominator under every crash-rate comparison.
“Self-driving” spans everything from lane-keeping (Level 2) to no-human-needed robotaxis (Level 4). Waymo runs Level 4 in set areas; most consumer “autopilot” is Level 2. The gap is the whole game.
Tesla — Tesla began public Austin robotaxi rides with no human safety monitor in the car (22 Jan 2026); by June it covered the entire Austin metro (~245 sq mi, ~13–20 Model Ys), though remote operators can still intervene.
Waymo — Roughly 1M rides a month across 10+ US cities, widening its lead.
Waymo — Crossed 100M rider-only miles, doubling from 50M in seven months.
Tesla — Tesla began a limited robotaxi pilot in Austin — early and small-scale.
Waymo — Regulators allowed 24/7 paid driverless service in a major dense city.
Waymo — Waymo One opened fully driverless rides to the public in Phoenix.
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