Waymo’s Vehicle Supply Will Define Market Leadership
November 9, 2025
This Week in The Autonomy Economy is presented by Koop, a specialist insurance provider focused on robotics and autonomous vehicles.
This Week in the Autonomy Economy, Waymo announced three more markets as a new risk emerged, Baidu surpassed 250,000 rides a week, and Japan is looking to deploy 10,000 autonomous buses, taxis and trucks by 2030.
Two major robotaxi markets are emerging outside of China with two leading players in each. The U.S. market is currently led by Waymo. Europe is currently led by Uber. Waymo has the largest deployment of robotaxis in the United States, and soon Uber will have the largest deployment in Europe.
Uber’s aggressive European robotaxi expansion with Chinese partners has largely flown under the radar. Chinese robotaxi companies have world-class manufacturing partnerships with the ability to scale rapidly, something Waymo lacks today.
While everyone seemingly focuses on the San Francisco market and Uber’s upcoming Nuro/Lucid deployment in late 2026 followed by their VW/Mobileye rollout in LA in 2027, Europe may become the primary battleground for robotaxi supremacy between Waymo and Uber before Tesla begins to scale without safety attendants.
If Europe becomes that battleground, could Waymo strike a deal with VW to manufacture robotaxis for the European market? The timing couldn’t be better. VW is struggling, facing massive EV losses, and getting crushed by Chinese competition. After failing to scale a global robotaxi business for over a decade, could VW refocus on their core strength, manufacturing?
Manufacturing bespoke robotaxis for Waymo solves critical problems for both companies. VW secures guaranteed vehicle orders, increased factory utilization, and revenue diversification away from declining consumer EV sales. Waymo gains European manufacturing capacity and regulatory cover with EU-manufactured vehicles for EU deployments.
This isn’t VW doing Waymo a favor. This is VW securing a revenue stream that keeps German factories operational while Waymo gains the manufacturing capacity to compete with Uber’s Chinese partnerships at scale.
Both Uber with their Chinese robotaxi partners and Waymo with a potential VW partnership would finally be able to compete at scale in major markets around the world.
Or perhaps Stellantis rekindles their relationship with Waymo while maintaining their Uber/NVIDIA partnership, hedging both outcomes while securing vehicle supply contracts either way. No matter who wins, Stellantis would win in this scenario.
Robotaxis will scale globally. But manufacturing capacity, not technology will determine which companies scale profitably and which companies announce markets they can’t serve with the pickup times that consumers demand.
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What was Waymo’s major announcement this week, and what is the company’s biggest challenge?
Waymo announced the company is expanding to three new markets; San Diego, Detroit, and Las Vegas. However, their aggressive expansion highlights a critical constraint. Waymo is “vehicle-constrained” and does not
have the manufacturing capacity today to deploy the 300+ vehicles per market needed to achieve competitive wait times and profitability. Creating a “first-mover disadvantage” where competitors with better manufacturing partnerships could scale faster in those same markets.
Which market is emerging as the next big robotaxi battleground?
Europe is emerging as a major robotaxi battleground, and Uber is taking the lead. While many focus on the U.S., Uber is aggressively expanding in Europe, “under the radar” with Chinese robotaxi partners who have the ability to scale vehicle production rapidly, a capacity Waymo currently lacks.
What milestone did China’s Baidu recently achieve?
Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi service has surpassed 250,000 rides per week. This demonstrates the massive scale of China’s autonomous vehicle operations, which now power the robotaxi expansion into Europe.
How might Waymo solve its manufacturing problem to compete in Europe?
Waymo could strike a deal with Volkswagen (VW) to manufacture bespoke robotaxis for the European market. This would solve critical problems for both Waymo and VW. For Waymo, this partnership would provide European manufacturing capacity and “regulatory cover” by using EU-made vehicles. For VW, this partnership would secure guaranteed vehicle orders and diversify revenue as the company struggles with EV losses.
What is Japan’s new national goal for autonomous vehicles, trucks and buses?
In an effort to address the country’s growing labor shortage, the Japanese government is aiming to deploy 10,000 autonomous buses, taxis, and trucks by 2030.
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What’s Moving the Markets
Waymo’s Vehicle Supply Will Define Market Leadership
This week, Waymo announced expansions to San Diego, Detroit, and Las Vegas, bringing their operational footprint to 15 cities globally. The announcements signal aggressive growth ambitions, but they also expose a critical constraint. Waymo does not have the vehicle supply to properly service these markets with competitive wait times and expanded service areas.
Market density drives robotaxi unit economics. Conservative estimates suggest 300+ vehicles per major metropolitan market are required to achieve meaningful service density, competitive wait times, and positive contribution margins.
Waymo’s current commercial deployment pace suggests they are vehicle-constrained, not capital-constrained, announcing cities faster than they can deploy vehicles at economically viable densities.
This creates a first-mover disadvantage. Competitors with secure, long-term vehicle supply contracts can enter Waymo’s announced markets, achieve operational density quickly, and capture network effects while Waymo operates smaller fleets. The capital invested in early market entry delivers no return if robotaxi operators can’t scale to defensible service levels before competitors arrive.
Then there is the emerging Hyundai risk. Hyundai’s apparent strategic shift toward licensing an autonomous driving system could lead to their own robotaxi service, introducing supply chain risk.
If Hyundai pivots from vehicle supplier to developing (or co-developing) a robotaxi service, Waymo potentially loses manufacturing capacity and gains a competitor who controls vehicle allocation decisions. Avride faces the same exposure.
The financial implication is delayed vehicle deliveries extend cash burn and delayed deployments in announced markets around the world, pushing out revenue generation timelines. Every quarter with limited fleet size in select markets compounds capital inefficiency.
But there’s a solution in Japan. Waymo’s 2026 Tokyo launch provides strategic cover to finalize the Toyota partnership and potentially add Nissan as a second Japanese OEM.
Dual-sourcing with Japanese OEMs eliminates single-supplier risk and reduces Waymo’s exposure to Chinese manufacturing dependencies, a critical concern given potential tariffs, supply chain vulnerabilities, and regulatory scrutiny of China-manufactured autonomous vehicles operating in U.S. markets.
The alternative is announcing 30 cities while operating subscale fleets in all of them, a scenario where Waymo wins the technology race but loses the deployment race to competitors with better manufacturing partnerships.
Vehicle supply will determine whether Waymo maintains their U.S. market leadership and captures select international markets. The company that scales vehicle supply with institutional capital efficiency will ultimately win.
Our take: Making a car drive itself is the easy part. Building, scaling, and maintaining a robotaxi fleet that generates meaningful returns, that’s the hard part.
Waymo is currently ranked #1 with a bullish outlook on the AUTONOMY LEADERBOARD in the autonomous vehicle category.
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Piquing Our Interest
Traditional OEMS are Once Again Looking to Develop Autonomous Vehicles If at first you do not succeed, try and try again. That seems to be the motto of traditional OEMs, which are once again pursuing autonomous vehicles, but this time through a mix of partnerships, contract manufacturing, licensing, and selective in-house development efforts instead of a do it all ourselves approach.
Hyundai is in Discussions with Xpeng, Baidu and Momenta Hyundai appears to be ramping up their autonomous driving efforts, with a report this week indicating that the company is in talks with Xpeng, Baidu, and Momenta as it shifts its autonomous driving strategy from in-house development to a licensing.
Xpeng and Alibaba to Launch a Robotaxi Service in 2026 While the details are limited at this time, according to The Wall Street Journal, the robotaxi service will launch next year in China.
250,000 Rides a Week and Counting Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi service is currently conducting 250,000 rides a week in multiple markets.
Japan Looks to Deploy 10,000 Autonomous Buses, Taxis and Trucks by 2030 The Japanese Government is aiming to deploy 10,000 autonomous buses, taxis and trucks by 2030 in an effort to address the country’s growing labor shortage.
Caterpillar is Aiming to 3X Autonomous Trucks in Operation Caterpillar currently operates 690 autonomous trucks and aims to expand that number to more than 2,000 by 2030.
Kodiak Expands Partnership with ZF As Kodiak continues to grow, the company has expanded their partnership with ZF through a new order for 100 redundant steering systems for autonomous trucks.
📰 Before these stories were featured here, they were available on X. Follow @RoadToAutonomy today to stay up-to-date on the latest news and developments shaping the autonomy economy.
Social Buzz
Apollo Go Vehicles are now in Switzerland
It’s happening with next to no media coverage. The European robotaxi market is now powered by China. China’s rapid expansion onto the continent should alarm European Commission leaders, as the Europe has little ability to compete on price or technology.
First come the pilots, next thousands, and before you know it, hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made robotaxis will be on European roads. That moment is approaching faster than anyone expects, in an effort that we call the Autonomous Belt & Road Initiative.
Our take: First it was robotaxis, now it’s open-source AI models. China is rapidly mastering software to complement the country’s hardware strengths. The world needs to wake up as it’s all happening right now in real-time. When you combine superior hardware manufacturing with world-class software, you have a juggernaut. This major, yet largely unreported, shift will be the focus of an upcoming special episode of The Road to Autonomy podcast.
Latest Autonomy Markets Podcast
Waymo Expands, Lyft Builds, Uber Ducks as Tesla Rewrites the Autonomy Script
This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s expansion into three new markets, Uber’s role in autonomy and Lyft’s growing infrastructure ambitions.
Watch on YouTube | Spotify | X
Listen on Apple Podcasts
November 8, 2025
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