A driverless Tesla robotaxi and a Waymo autonomous vehicle make their way through roadwork on a residential street in Austin (Jay Janner/Getty Images)

Google’s Waymo now has 2,000 autonomous cars in service, while Tesla has about 30

Waymo has added more than 500 self-driving cars to its fleet in the past three months.

Rani Molla

9/2/25 2:59PM

Last week Tesla’s robotaxi service announced that it increased its coverage area in Austin to 173 square miles from 91 (the map of the coverage area is no longer penis-shaped) and increased the number of cars available by 50%. Of course, Tesla never confirmed the original number of cars it was operating in Austin, but had somewhere between 10 and 20. We’ll say 50% more is 30, to be generous.

Meanwhile, Google’s Waymo shared with Sherwood News that its self-driving robotaxi fleet now counts more than 2,000 vehicles across 665 square miles in five major markets. That includes more than 100 vehicles in Austin and more than 800 in San Francisco. Nationwide, it’s added about 500 more vehicles since we last reported in June on the company’s expansion to Atlanta, where it now says it has “dozens” of vehicles in operation.

In Austin, where both Waymo and Tesla operate, Tesla has about double the coverage area, but a third of the cars that Waymo has.

Austin is the only market where Tesla operates its car service autonomously (though the program still has human safety monitors sitting in the passenger seat) and it’s still only available to select invitees, though CEO Elon Musk said last month, without providing specifics, that the program “will be open access” in September.

Musk stated earlier this year that there would be “millions of Teslas operating autonomously” by the end of 2026, growth that is crucial to the company’s evolving value proposition.

Here’s how Waymo and Tesla’s autonomous vehicle services compare as of early September:

Rani Molla23m

Google’s Waymo to expand autonomous driving service to Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh

Alphabet-owned Waymo announced Wednesday that it’s planning on expanding to four additional cities — Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh — though it hasn’t provided a timeline for when customers will be able to access autonomous services in those cities. It’s begun autonomous testing with a safety monitor in Philadelphia, and collecting data with manual drivers in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.

The latest announcement comes after a slew of other expansion announcements last month, growing its footprint across the country, and strengthening its lead against Tesla. Currently, Waymo is operating commercial services in five cities and has plans to expand that service to about 20 more.

Rani Molla4h

Tesla sales drop in Germany, adding to declines across Europe

Tesla sales in Germany, one of its biggest European markets, fell 20% in November and are down nearly 50% through November compared with a year earlier, deepening what has largely been a year of sales declines across the continent.

CEO Elon Musk has said Europe, Tesla’s third-largest market, is its “weakest market,” blaming the lack of regulatory approval for its Full Self-Driving tech.

For what it’s worth, even in places where FSD is allowed, adoption isn’t strong. On the company’s most recent earnings call, CFO Vaibhav Taneja said that globally, only 12% of Tesla’s existing fleet pays for FSD.

Jon Keegan4h

Report: Anthropic hires law firm to prepare for possible IPO in 2026

Anthropic has taken the first steps toward a possible initial public offering next year, according to a new report from the Financial Times.

Anthropic has hired West Coast law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin work on the IPO, per the report.

Anthropic’s valuation has skyrocketed recently, reaching as high as $350 billion by some estimates. An IPO for Anthropic would allow investors one of their first real cracks at tapping into white-hot demand for the private companies at the heart of the generative-AI boom that started three years ago with OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT.

Anthropic taps IPO lawyers as it races OpenAI to go public

Anthropic Projects $70 Billion in Revenue, $17 Billion in Cash Flow in 2028

Rani Molla4h

Microsoft drops after report that it lowered AI sales quotas in the face of lower-than-expected demand

Microsoft was down around 3% this morning after The Information reported that multiple divisions within the tech giant have lowered their sales quotas for AI products as traditional customers resist paying more for largely unproven tech. The stock pared some of those losses after CNBC reported that Microsoft issued a statement saying it hadn’t lowered sales quotas or targets. The Information has updated its headline to say “Microsoft Lowers AI Software Growth Targets as Customers Resist Newer Products.”

While AI spending has been a major revenue lift for Microsoft, The Information noted that much of that revenue is booked from AI companies themselves, which rent cloud infrastructure from the hyperscaler — arrangements critics have described as circular deals that inflate apparent growth. Microsoft’s stock has been struggling following its earnings report in late October, when the company reversed its guidance on capital spending, meaning its AI expenses would continue to grow.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft salespeople were having trouble selling the company’s chatbot, Copilot, with consumers preferring OpenAI’s ChatGPT instead.

Microsoft Lowers AI Software Sales Quotas as Customers Resist Newer Products

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft salespeople were having trouble selling the company’s chatbot, Copilot, with consumers preferring OpenAI’s ChatGPT instead.

+6%

Rani Molla5h

Apple iPhone shipments are expected to jump 6.1% to a record 247.4 million units this year, according to a new report by IDC, “thanks to the phenomenal success of its latest iPhone 17 series.”

Meanwhile, smartphone sales overall are expected to grow 1.5% this year compared with 2024.

Apple’s previous annual record was in 2021, when the iPhone 13 came out. The IDC Apple estimate is higher than a recent one by Counterpoint Research, which pegged shipments at 243 million.