Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has just completed a $5.6 billion funding round for its self-driving car company, Waymo. The company plans to use this capital to expand its autonomous taxi services in cities across the United States, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, with potential expansions into new markets such as Austin and Atlanta.

On Friday, October 25th, Eastern Time, it was reported that this Series C funding round has brought Waymo's total capital raised to over $11 billion. Prior to this, the company had already raised $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion in two earlier funding rounds. Alphabet's Chief Financial Officer, Ruth Porat, announced in July that the parent company is committed to investing up to $5 billion in Waymo over several years.

The funding round was led by Alphabet, with early investors such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity Investments, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price also participating in the investment.

Currently, Waymo provides autonomous taxi services in several major cities across the United States, offering over 100,000 trips per week for passengers who can hail rides through the Waymo One app.

The competition for autonomous taxi services in the United States is heating up.

Waymo's co-CEOs, Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, stated in an interview that the new funds will be used to expand the business and advance the commercial application of Waymo Driver technology. They announced that Waymo plans to launch its autonomous taxi service in Austin, Texas, in collaboration with Uber, which is also the location of potential rival Tesla's headquarters.

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Despite Tesla's announcement this week that it will launch an autonomous ride-hailing service in Texas and California next year, Waymo still maintains a leading position in the autonomous driving field. Tesla still needs to upgrade its semi-automatic systems, meaning that its current vehicles require human drivers.

Waymo's autonomous taxis are popular among women and parents for their safety, as they perceive the service to be safer than traditional taxis without the presence of a stranger driver, leading some parents to use the service to take their children to school.

However, autonomous vehicle manufacturers in the United States still need to prove that their technology is safer than taxis and trucks with human drivers. As previously reported, a survey by the Pew Research Center showed that nearly two-thirds of American respondents said they would be unwilling to ride in an autonomous passenger vehicle if given the opportunity.

Therefore, Waymo is also actively enhancing the safety of its autonomous driving technology. Although its autonomous vehicles occasionally cause traffic jams, go in the wrong direction on the street, or even get involved in collision accidents, according to CNBC, these incidents have not resulted in any known deaths or serious injuries.In comparison, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, was once a competitor to Waymo in the United States, but it had to temporarily suspend operations due to an accident in October 2023. In that incident, a pedestrian was first struck by a human driver in another vehicle and then dragged 20 feet by Cruise's self-driving car. Currently, Cruise is working hard to resume its services and plans to collaborate with Uber.

While many companies are testing self-driving cars on public roads in the United States, Waymo is the only one that truly offers driverless taxi services in several major cities. According to an analysis by Timothy B. Lee, the author of Understanding AI, data reported by Waymo itself shows that the frequency of collisions involving their vehicles on public roads is "far lower than that of human drivers."

Waymo has stated that its next-generation autonomous taxis will feature the Geely Zeekr model, equipped with customized sensors and artificial intelligence "drivers." Additionally, Waymo has reached a multi-year strategic cooperation with Hyundai Motor Company to include Hyundai's Ioniq 5 electric vehicles in its fleet of autonomous taxis.

Furthermore, the company also plans to test its autonomous vehicles in more severe winter weather conditions, including tests in Northern California, upstate New York, and Michigan, with the expectation of expanding its services to more regions in the future and ultimately achieving internationalization.