Technology · Issue 02
Half a million robotaxi trips, every week
Waymo: 50,000 paid trips a week in May 2024, 500,000 by March 2026, across fourteen US cities and about 4,000 vehicles. Tesla’s Cybercab event is a product. This is a timetable.
- Waymo paid trips per week, Mar 2026
- 500k
- May 2024
- 50k
- In twenty-two months
- 10×
- Vehicles, 14 US cities, Sep 2026
- ~4,000
A timetable, not a keynote
The circulating fight is cameras versus lidar. The number that compounds is trips. Waymo’s own ladder: 50,000 paid rides a week in May 2024, about 250,000 when Tesla switched on Austin in June 2025, 500,000 by March 2026 — ten times in twenty-two months — and still that print in early September as the fleet entered a fourteenth US city. Alphabet’s robotaxi is a 4,000-vehicle bus company that happens to have no driver. Tesla’s 3 September 2026 Cybercab event is a product introduction. Until Tesla prints a weekly paid-trip number, it is not on this chart.
China already has the volume
Baidu’s Apollo Go: more than 20 million cumulative rides by February 2026, 3.4 million fully driverless in Q4 2025, a weekly peak above 300,000 then, and above 350,000 in March 2026, across two dozen-plus cities. That is not ‘China will have robotaxis’. That is China having them, with a safety driver mostly already off the vehicle, in a regulatory regime that allowed the scale. The investing error is to treat Waymo’s 500,000 as the world. The investing error in the other direction is to assume a Chinese print transfers to California DMV.
The long view is a labour chart wearing a car
A paid trip without a driver is a wage that does not get paid. Pair this with China installed half the world’s robots and The age of fewer children. The scarce goods are a permit, a lidar-or-vision stack that does not kill someone, and a city that will let you operate at 2 a.m. Own the operator with miles, the insurance that will write the book, and the cities. Do not own a 2026 ‘Tesla wins robotaxi’ coupon that still has no weekly print.
Investing lens
Horizon 5–12 years · Educational, not advice
Robotaxi is a permitted-miles and labour-substitution story. Own the operator that already prints weekly trips, the stack behind it, and the cities. Do not underwrite a keynote as a timetable.
Where the map points
- Alphabet/Waymo as the US scale print
- Baidu Apollo Go as the China volume print, sized for governance
- Auto-insurance and fleet-maintenance that can price no-driver miles
- Avoid a 2026 Cybercab earnings multiple with no weekly-trip disclosure
What can break it
- A single high-profile crash that freezes a city permit
- Tesla printing a real weekly number that reprices the corridor
- Labour and taxi politics that cap scale regardless of the software
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimaryWaymo2026-08-1010 AI Lessons from Driving 200+ Million Fully Autonomous Miles
More than 200 million fully autonomous miles; millions of miles a week.
- 02CorroboratedTechCrunch2026-09-01Waymo goes on offense ahead of Tesla's Cybercab launch
Fleet ~4,000 robotaxis across 14 US cities; 500,000 paid trips per week. Denver, San Diego, Tampa added. 50,000 weekly in May 2024 to 500,000 in March 2026 is the widely cited ladder.
- 03PrimaryCnEVPost / Baidu2026-02-27Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi hits 300,000 weekly rides
20 million cumulative rides by Feb 2026. Q4 2025 weekly peak >300,000; 3.4 million fully driverless rides in the quarter.
- 04CorroboratedElectrek2026-06-16Baidu Apollo Go wins Level 4 robotaxi approval in Switzerland
Weekly rides peaking above 350,000 in March 2026; cumulative public rides 22 million by April 2026; 27 cities.
Keep reading
China installed half the world’s robots
In 2024 the world’s factories took 542,000 new industrial robots. 295,000 of them went to China — more than the rest of Earth combined.
54%
China’s share of new industrial robots, 2024
One in four new cars is now electric
The IEA counted 21 million electric cars in 2025. China already sells more EVs than ICE. America is the holdout.
25%
World new-car sales that were electric, 2025
Eleven thousand satellites, one operator
As of 27 August 2026 there are 11,102 Starlink satellites in orbit — 11,087 of them working. The first 60 went up in May 2019. This is how broadband is being distributed when fibre is slow and a coastline is a chokepoint.
11,102
Starlink satellites in orbit, 27 Aug 2026
1,220 robots for every 10,000 Korean workers
IFR, April 2026: the Republic of Korea has the world’s highest robot density, 1,220 industrial robots per 10,000 employees. Singapore 818. Germany 449. Humanoids, in the same year, still have almost no real-world applications.
1,220
Korea, robots per 10,000 employees (IFR 2026)