Waymo Is A Trillion-Dollar Opportunity. Google Just Needs To Seize It.

Forbes

If Alphabet pushed the rollout of its self-driving tech company even harder, Waymo could dominate a new market with the potential to generate more revenue than its ad business.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2025/09/03/waymo-could-be-a-trillion-dollar-opportunity/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, Waymo is a trillion-dollar opportunity. Google just needs to seize it.

00:07In the summer of 2015, when veteran auto executive John Krafcik was recruited to turn

00:13Google's self-driving car project into a new business unit for Alphabet, co-founders Sergey

00:18Brin and Larry Page gave him an aspirational target. Krafcik, the former CEO of Waymo,

00:25the project's successor, told Forbes, quote, they asked me to build a great company and then make

00:31it bigger than Google. The idea was preposterous since it wasn't clear when or if autonomous driving

00:38would be safe enough for real-world deployment, let alone at scale. A decade later, things have

00:46changed. Waymo robotaxis log about 300,000 paid rides worth at least six million dollars every week

00:53in the five cities where they operate. That figure will rise exponentially in the next few years

00:59as its fleet grows and the service expands to 15 markets or more, including Miami, New York,

01:05Washington, D.C., Boston, Nashville, and maybe Tokyo, Waymo's first international foray.

01:13On Tuesday, the company set its testing in Denver and Seattle, following a blog post at the end of

01:18August, emphasizing plans to scale as quickly as possible. Waymo said, quote,

01:25we're entering a new chapter and accelerating our commercial expansion. If you see us driving in

01:30your city, it's because we are working hard to serve you in the future.

01:34After 16 years of disciplined development, billionaire tech investor Vinod Khosla says it's time to floor it.

01:42Khosla told Forbes, quote, Waymo's in a multi-trillion dollar global market, and as far as I can tell,

01:48there are no competitors that are close. You've got a multi-trillion dollar business. Frankly,

01:53it's probably bigger than Google's ad business by a lot. And they're in a position to increase

01:57the lead over others. I'd be spending as much money on this as on data centers, like tens of

02:03billions of dollars a year, to expand their coverage and own market share very, very quickly.

02:10Waymo's benchmark self-driving car program is at an inflection point. In the robo-taxi space,

02:15it has no meaningful US competition at the moment, though Amazon's Zoox hopes to change that with the

02:21looming launch of its service in Las Vegas. Globally, perhaps only China's Baidu is shaping

02:27up to be a major rival. Elon Musk's incessant boasts aside, Tesla is not a leader in the space.

02:34Its Austin robo-taxi pilot, with safety drivers on board and remote operators standing by,

02:39is less impressive than the first fully autonomous car trip on public roads, which also took place in

02:45that city, when Waymo gave legally blind passenger Steve Mahan a solo ride in late 2015.

02:53Ride revenue for Mountain View, California-based Waymo could hit $300 million this year,

02:58or triple what Forbes estimated the unit saw in 2024, based on current ride figures and an estimated

03:05average fare of about $20 by Obie, an app that aggregates real-time ride-hail prices.

03:11Without confirming the annual estimate, Saswat Panagrahi, Waymo's chief product officer,

03:17told Forbes, quote,

03:19"...things are getting into very serious revenue territory, and the growth, how much effort we

03:23have to expend for that, each increment is getting easier." He pointed to the pace with which its weekly

03:30ride figure has grown, jumping from $50,000 a week in May 2024 to more than $250,000 a week in April,

03:37just as the service was entering Austin and before it launched in Atlanta, and continued expanding in Los

03:43Angeles, the San Francisco Bay region, and Phoenix. Over the past 16 years, Waymo has received at least

03:50$12 billion from parent Alphabet and outside investors. Receiving tens of billions of dollars

03:57more in immediate additional funding would accelerate Waymo's ability to scale its fleet globally,

04:02onlookers argue. Right now, it operates about 2,000 electric robo-taxis, not even a drop in the

04:08bucket in the global taxi and ride-hailing market, comprising millions of vehicles. But just how

04:14much faster Waymo could scale if it were to have such resources isn't entirely clear. Expanding into

04:20new regions too quickly increases the likelihood of serious accidents, including fatal collisions that

04:25Waymo wants to continue to avoid. For full coverage, check out Alan Owensman's piece on Forbes.com.

04:34This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

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