Google parent company Alphabet plans to invest $5 billion in Waymo, its unit for autonomous vehicles, over the next few years. Alphabet CTO Ruth Porat announced the news during the company’s quarterly financial results call with investors earlier this week.
Prior to this, Waymo raised $2.25 billion in its first external funding round in 2020. The company raised another $2.5 billion in 2021 in a round that included funding from Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research Company and more.
The new funding round will enable Waymo to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous driving company, he said.
Notably, the announcement about Alphabet’s new investment in Waymo came after Tesla postponed plans to unveil its robotaxi called CyberCab from August to October 10 this year.
Waymo self-driving car approach
Waymo has been developing its autonomous vehicle tech for over a decade now. Originally the Google self-driving car project, its roots lie in Stanford’s entries in the 2005 and 2007 DARPA Grand Challenges.
Alphabet spun-out Waymo as a standalone company in 2016. The following year, Waymo placed big orders for hybrid Chrysler Pacifica minivans and fully electric Jaguar I-Paces, knitting those production models with their own sensors and autonomous driving hardware.
The company is also starting to test its tech with an EV created by Zeekr (a Geely brand alongside Polestar and Lynk & Co).
CEO Sundar Pichai said on the earnings call that Waymo provides 50,000 weekly paid trips, primarily in San Francisco and Phoenix. After surpassing competition from several players, Waymo operates commercial ride-hailing services in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. It will soon expand to Austin, Texas as well.
