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.
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:
