Waymo’s Debatable Growth Milestone

Way to go, Waymo! The Alphabet-owned robotaxi service has hit a 100-million-mile autonomous driving milestone, the company announced Tuesday to much fanfare. That figure is 10 times what it was two months ago. Take that, Elon Musk, whose Tesla has barely launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.

Waymo’s success reflects a growing acceptance of self-driving cars as taxis—one that’s increasingly global. Indeed, also on Tuesday, Uber and Baidu announced a partnership to roll out Baidu’s autonomous vehicles on Uber’s network in Asia and the Middle East. Having said all that, it’s hard to interpret how fast Waymo is really growing. As it is expanding into new markets steadily—adding Austin and Atlanta most recently, with Miami and Washington coming soon—you’d expect the number of miles driven to be going up very fast.