Alphabet commits $5 billion investment in Waymo self-driving car company

Google’s parent Alphabet has announced a $5 billion investment in Waymo self-driving car company to advance its technologies.

Ruth Porat, Chief Finance Officer at Alphabet said that Waymo is making progress in its task to achieve better autonomy. He highlights that the service is receiving better response from customers.

Porat revealed that Waymo has achieved more than 2 million trips as of July 2024 and has driven more than 20 million miles on public roads. The company is completing 50,000 weekly paid public rides. It is conducting operations primarily in San Fransico and Phoneix. It also removed the wait list in San Fransico last month allowing customers to take a ride.

“We have chosen to commit to a new multiyear investment of $5 billion,” said Porta.

This investment will be used to build new autonomous driving technology and improve operations around the company.

Waymo accounted for $365 million in quarterly revenue, an increase from $285 million last year. On the other hand, its losses hiked to $1.13 billion from $813 million in 2023.

Aside from large investors, Alphabet’s self-driving car company raised $2.25 billion in the first external funding in 2020 and $2.5 billion raised in 2021.

Co-CEO, Tekedra Mawakana also reacted to this news by thanking Alphabet.

“We are grateful for their immense vote of confidence in our team and recognizing the amazing progress we’ve made with our technology, product, and commercialization efforts,” Mawakana wrote on X on Tuesday.

“This is a testament to the milestones we’ve reached together and the many more to come as we improve road safety and advance the World’s Most Experienced Driver.” wrote Dmitri Dolgov, Co-CEO of Waymo.

This investment comes at a time when Tesla is ramping up efforts to unveil its Robotaxi in October this year. However, it may take some time for the EV maker to bring its self-driving taxi to the public.