The driverless car squeeze

Waymo’s rapid robotaxi expansion is accelerating the shift to autonomous vehicles, squeezing Uber and Lyft drivers

David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images

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A little over a decade ago, Uber $UBER drivers were the ones circling the block while taxi medallion holders watched their livelihoods evaporate. Now a familiar scene is playing out again, except this time there is no one behind the wheel of the vehicle doing the disrupting.

Waymo, Alphabet $GOOGL's autonomous driving unit, currently provides roughly 400,000 paid rides per week across half a dozen American cities, with the company expecting to surpass one million weekly rides by the end of 2026. It quadrupled its trip volume in 2025 alone. 

After raising $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation earlier this year, Waymo is preparing to roll into Nashville, Washington, Detroit, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Denver, with testing underway in several more markets. The company plans to be operating or testing in 20 cities by year's end, including its first international expansion.

For millions of gig drivers who rely on Uber and Lyft $LYFT for their income, those numbers land differently than they do in a venture........

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