Waymo says it gave 4 million driverless rides in 2024 as Cruise bowed out

Previously

In Part 1, a claims study Waymo ran with Swiss Re covered 25.3 million driverless miles and found far fewer liability claims than human drivers. The paper was still awaiting a journal.

December 2024 — Waymo closed 2024 by counting rides instead of miles. Here's what changed since Part 1 (December 2024), what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of Dec. 26, 2024)

Rides in 2024: "over 4 million fully autonomous rides this year alone… over 5 million rides total," Waymo said. (Waymo)
Growth: about sevenfold from November 2023, when Waymo said it had completed around 700,000 trips. (CNBC)
Weekly volume: over 150,000 trips per week. (Waymo)
Funding: a $5.6 billion multiyear investment, $5 billion of it from Alphabet. (CNBC)
Fares and unit costs: not disclosed.

Waymo's own count

Waymo said riders spent more than 1 million hours in its cars in 2024, and its electric fleet helped avoid "over 6 million kilograms of CO2 emissions," using its own method. It said it served "nearly 500 square miles" across four metro areas, with Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles fully open to the public and "early riders" in Austin. CNBC put the footprint at "more than 500 square miles."

The most popular destinations, according to Waymo, were Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, the Ferry Building in San Francisco and The Grove in Los Angeles.

Waymo calls the 4 million "fully autonomous rides." CNBC describes them as "4 million paid." We found no breakdown showing whether every ride was fared.

The field around it

General Motors decided earlier in December to shutter Cruise, CNBC reported, after pouring $10 billion into it. Cruise grounded its driverless operations in October 2023, after collisions led to investigations and a suspension of its California licenses. NHTSA later fined Cruise $1.5 million for failing to disclose details of a serious crash that month involving a pedestrian.

"Cruise was well on its way to a robotaxi business, but when you look at the fact you're deploying a fleet, there's a whole operations piece of doing that," GM CEO Mary Barra said. GM will now focus on what it calls "personal autonomous vehicles," and had not decided how many of Cruise's 2,300 employees would move to its broader tech team. Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, who left in November 2023, posted on X that GM "are a bunch of dummies."

Tesla showed a two-seat "Cybercab" in October and said it wants to produce it by 2027 and sell it for under $30,000. Amazon-owned Zoox, acquired for about $1.3 billion in 2020, won permits in February to carry members of the public in Foster City, California, CNBC reported.

What's next

Waymo said it planned to launch in Austin and Atlanta on the Uber app in 2025, Miami with fleet partner Moove in 2026, and called Tokyo, with partners Nihon Kotsu and GO, its "first international road trip" in 2025. Waymo is also testing in Detroit and Buffalo, New York, and at a track in Columbus, Ohio, CNBC said. It reported that the next Waymo vehicle cuts cameras from 29 to 13 and lidar units from five to four, and that a Hyundai Ioniq 5 deal would bring testing by late 2025.

What went wrong

A car set on fire. In February, a crowd attacked a Waymo vehicle and set it alight, CNBC reported.
A rider trapped. In September, a woman posted that two men stopped her robotaxi by standing outside it and asked for her phone number.
Mismatched figures. Waymo and CNBC describe both the ride count and the service area differently.
What we don't know yet: fares, per-ride costs and whether Waymo makes money on any trip.

Our follow-up question for Waymo

How many of the 4 million 2024 rides were paid, and how many were employee, test or free trips?

Later developments (added Oct. 2026)

By July 2026, Waymo had given more than 20 million rides and was aiming for 1 million weekly trips by year-end, CNBC reported. (CNBC)
The Zeekr-based vehicle is now called the Ojai; the Colorado Sun describes it as "built by Chinese automaker Geely." See Part 5. (Colorado Sun)

Sources

Waymo, The Waymo Team, “That's a Wrap! Waymo's 2024 Year in Review,” Dec. 18, 2024. waymo.com
CNBC, Lora Kolodny and Jennifer Elias, “Waymo dominated U.S. robotaxi market in 2024, but Tesla and Amazon's Zoox loom,” Dec. 26, 2024. cnbc.com
CNBC, Jennifer Elias, “Waymo to start driverless rides in 4 more U.S. markets as expansion accelerates,” July 8, 2026. cnbc.com
The Colorado Sun, Tamara Chuang, “Waymo launching robotaxi service in Denver. But only for its own workers.,” July 8, 2026. coloradosun.com
Waymo, The Waymo Team, “Expanding our Waymo One fleet with Geely's all-electric vehicle designed for riders first,” Dec. 28, 2021. waymo.com

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder