Alphabets self-driving unit Waymo closes $5.6 billion funding round as robotaxi race heats up in the U.S.
Summary
The autonomous vehicle venture is owned by Google parent Alphabet, who led the series C investment in Waymo, alongside earlier backers including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price. While many companies are testing autonomous vehicles, or AVs, on public roads in the U.S., including well-funded upstarts like Wayve, Waymo is the only one to operate a commercial robotaxi service in several major metro areas. This week, he said Tesla would offer a driverless ridehailing service in Texas and California next year, once the company upgrades the partially automated systems in its existing vehicles, which still require a human driver today. Still, Waymo has initiated software recalls to improve the safety of its self-driving systems, and its AVs have sometimes blocked traffic, traveled the wrong way down the street or been involved in collisions (none resulting in a known fatality or severe injury). In August, Waymo said it would also test its driverless vehicles in harsher, winter weather including in northern California, upstate New York and Michigan, with the hope of offering robotaxi services beyond the sunbelt, and eventually internationally.