Waymo is scaling fast: Here’s what the fleet data shows | TechCrunch
Short summary
Waymo operates robotaxis in 15 U.S. cities and averages 500,000 weekly rides, but 80% of its fleet sits in California and Texas. The company is rapidly scaling in Texas with Chinese-built Ojai minivans, betting they'll cut costs despite import tariffs eating into savings.
- Waymo's 4,000-vehicle fleet is heavily concentrated: 80% in California and Texas, with the remaining 800 spread across Arizona, Florida, and other states
- Texas fleet surged 49% in just three weeks (reaching 1,102 vehicles as of late September), driven by new Ojai minivans that now comprise about a third of the state's robotaxis
- The Ojai minivans are Chinese-built Zeekr vehicles retrofitted with Waymo's self-driving system in Arizona, designed to reduce costs and enable scale, but tariffs are currently offsetting savings
Full summary
Waymo's robotaxi expansion looks impressive on the surface—500,000 paid rides weekly across 15 U.S. cities—but the company is actually betting everything on two states. About 80% of its 4,000-vehicle fleet sits in California and Texas, with Texas becoming the real focus. In just three weeks, Waymo added nearly 50% more vehicles to its Texas operations, pushing the state fleet to 1,102 registered autonomous vehicles. The company launched commercial service in Austin through Uber in March 2025 and has since expanded to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, but the summer showed slow growth until September's sudden surge.
That surge came from the Ojai, a modified Chinese-built Zeekr minivan that Waymo is using to chase profitability at scale. The vehicles arrive from China stripped of any connected-car tech, then get shipped to Waymo's Arizona factory for installation of the company's sixth-generation self-driving system and Gemini AI integration. The Ojai now makes up about a third of the Texas fleet and is designed to handle heavy use better than the Jaguar I-Pace SUVs that dominated earlier deployments. But here's the catch: Chinese tariffs are eating into the cost savings. Waymo is absorbing these tariff hits anyway, with shipping data suggesting the company will import 5,100 Ojais by year-end.
The minivans will spread beyond Texas. Florida, where Waymo operates in three cities, and newer markets like Las Vegas are slated to receive them. The strategy is clear—use cheaper, purpose-built vehicles to undercut the economics that have kept autonomous rideshare unprofitable. Whether tariffs eventually force Waymo to rethink this approach or whether the company can scale fast enough to offset import costs remains the real question hanging over this expansion.