When Tesla first hit the scene, there was one thing that set them apart, and it wasn’t the EV factor; it was that it drove itself. Videos began to fill the internet, in the early days of YouTube, with celebs riding around without touching the wheel in places like LA and San Francisco. But at the end of the day, it turned out to be a gimmick because these cars were not yet safe enough for serious usage without very active human supervision.
That’s not the case anymore. Tesla hit the lab and researched more reliable AV tech. Waymo was bought by Google and launched a safer-than-human AV option. Today, in August of 2026, more than 500,000 paid robotaxi rides occur per week. This is compared to 50,000 per week in 2024. Waymo delivered a whopping 14 million rides in 2025. Baidu (the Chinese robotaxi leader) has pushed past 3.4 million robotaxi rides in just Q4 2025. Waymo reported 3.8 million miles with zero human bodily injuries, whereas the human driver baseline is more than 4 injuries for that same mileage. Waymo has demonstrated 90% less serious crashes over their 120+ million miles.
And yet, it seems like this won’t stick. Why is that?
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