Adaptation · Deployment & application
Waymo paid rides per week
1What this measures
Paid robotaxi rides Waymo provides per week across its US cities, as stated by the company and relayed by the press.
Why it matters. The paper's clearest example of a regulated, physical-world deployment that diffuses city by city. The number is the speed limit made visible.
- Proxy types
- deployment, product
- Unit
- rides_per_week
- Cadence
- quarterly
- Valve
- adoption to adaptation
2How we track this
- series
techcrunch.waymo.weekly_paid_rides.pt - series
electrek.waymo.weekly_paid_rides.pt - source Electrek · default tier 5 · Electrek; short quotation
- source TechCrunch · default tier 7 · TechCrunch; short quotation
- Normal band
- ≤ 1,000,000 rides per week
- Fast band
- ≥ 5,000,000 rides per week
- Falsifying
- —
Normal = under a million paid rides a week, well under one percent of US ride-hail trips and scaling one city at a time; fast = five million or more, a national-scale substitution. Between is `emerging`.
Applied to techcrunch.waymo.weekly_paid_rides.pt.
3Tracker interpretation
Half a million a week, doubling roughly yearly, ten cities. A decade-long diffusion curve on schedule.
4Evidence
2 observations. Hollow points are disputed (see counterevidence). Every point links to its observation.
5Status and reasoning
Evaluator: 5e+05 (TechCrunch, 2026-03-27) is inside the consistent band (hi=1e+06). Auto-reason; band rationale: Normal = under a million paid rides a week, well under one percent of US ride-hail trips and scaling one city at a time; fast = five million or more, a national-scale substitution. Between is `emerging`.
6Timeline notes
- 2026-03-27 waymo · 500,000 rides per weekas of 2026-03-27
7Counterevidence
What cuts against this reading
Company-stated figures relayed by the press (tier 5); city launches are lumpy; a single safety event can pause the curve.
8Update history
- 2026-09-10unmeasured to consistent with normalconf — → 65 · evaluate
Evaluator: 5e+05 (TechCrunch, 2026-03-27) is inside the consistent band (hi=1e+06). Auto-reason; band rationale: Normal = under a million paid rides a week, well under one percent of US ride-hail trips and scaling one city at a time; fast = five million or more, a national-scale substitution. Between is `emerging`.
9Confidence
65 / 95 — mixed or hard to operationalise
Confidence is independent of status: 90–95 multiple strong independent sources; 70–89 good evidence, some ambiguity; 50–69 mixed or hard to operationalise; below 50 limited or vague.
10Related
- FDA-authorised devices built on a large language model consistent with normal
- US state AI bills introduced (legislative year) emerging
- Crosswalk: Adaptation ⇄ Deployment & application (leak from)