An autonomous (self-driving) vehicle operates with reduced or no human input. Capability is graded by the SAE J3016 levels: 0 no automation; 1 driver assistance (steering or speed); 2 partial automation (both, driver supervises continuously); 3 conditional automation (system drives, driver must take over on request); 4 high automation (no driver needed within a limited operating domain, with a safe fallback); 5 full automation in all conditions. Perception relies on computer-vision, sensor fusion and artificial-neural-network models.
Robotaxi status, autumn 2026 (dated; press and company sources)
Classification: Waymo, Zoox and Apollo Go run driverless services in defined areas, which is SAE Level 4. Tesla’s consumer “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” is Level 2; its Robotaxi service is a separate fleet (see below).
- Waymo (alphabet): TechCrunch (2026-03-27) reported 500,000 paid rides a week across 10 US cities, up from 50,000 a week in May 2024; its 2026 target, stated by co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana in February 2026, is over one million paid rides a week by year end. Waymo’s blog shows public service opening in Dallas (2026-08-04) and Houston (2026-08-20), with Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego and Tampa in preparation (2026-07-08), and Singapore announced (2026-09-17) and London and Munich planned. A secondary source says Denver, San Diego and Tampa opened to the public on 2026-09-01 (14 US cities); not confirmed on Waymo’s own page.
- Tesla (tesla): Tesla’s Q2 2026 update (SEC 8-K) says unsupervised Robotaxi rides expanded in Austin and began in Miami, Orlando and Tampa in July 2026, after Dallas and Houston in April; the Bay Area still needs a safety driver under its permit; about 2.5 million cumulative paid Robotaxi miles; Cybercab production began at Gigafactory Texas; FSD (Supervised) had 1.48 million active subscriptions and was approved in Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark and Belgium. Wikipedia (secondary) dates Cybercab public rides in Austin to 2026-09-03 with a small fleet and says NHTSA opened a Cybercab compliance audit in September 2026.
- Zoox (Amazon): on 2026-07-30 NHTSA granted the first commercial exemption for a purpose-built robotaxi without steering wheel or pedals (up to 2,500 vehicles a year for two years). Press reports paid rides on the Las Vegas Strip from 2026-08-10; San Francisco paid service still needs California PUC and DMV permits (TechCrunch, 2026-07-30; CNBC).
- Baidu Apollo Go: Baidu’s Q1 2026 results are reportedly (via a search summary, not the Baidu page) 3.2 million fully driverless rides in the quarter, weekly rides peaking above 350,000 in March, over 22 million cumulative rides by April and 27 cities by May 2026; operations in Dubai (fully driverless commercial service) and Seoul, with Switzerland and London testing planned (CnEVPost 2026-02-27; Baidu IR). Other operators (Pony.ai, WeRide) were not checked.
- Regulation: the US has no federal AV statute; NHTSA grants exemptions and states license deployment. Europe uses UN/EU type approval.
Related: robotics, physical-ai-and-humanoids, ai-safety-and-governance.
Open items
- Waymo’s public city count (10 vs 14) and fleet size beyond 3,000+ (December 2025 NHTSA data) not confirmed on waymo.com; the Baidu IR page timed out, Q1 figures come via a search summary.
- Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot (Level 3) status was a Wikipedia-only claim and was removed; Pony.ai, WeRide, Wayve not checked; safety statistics deliberately not compared (definitions differ).
Sources (accessed 2026-10-05)
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/27/waymo-skyrocketing-ridership-in-one-chart/
- https://waymo.com/blog/
- https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/000162828026049213/exhibit991.htm (Tesla Q2 2026)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Robotaxi (secondary)
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/30/zoox-clears-final-federal-hurdle-to-launch-paid-robotaxi-service/
- https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/30/amazon-zoox-robotaxi-rides-las-vegas.html (via search)
- https://cnevpost.com/2026/02/27/baidu-apollo-go-robotaxi-300000-weekly-rides-expands-to-south-korea/
- https://ir.baidu.com/news-releases/news-release-details/baidu-announces-first-quarter-2026-results (search summary only)