Waymo, the self-driving arm of Google parent company Alphabet, has raised a new round of funding to help support its efforts in expanding the Waymo One ride-hailing service.
On Friday, Waymo announced in a press release that it closed on an oversubscribed investment round of $5.6 billion, as led by Alphabet. The company gained additional investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price.
“Customers love Waymo. The company has built the safest product in the autonomous vehicle ecosystem as well as the best,” Tiger Global Founder Chase Coleman said. “Their proven experience fostering rider loyalty, securing key partnerships, and collaborating with automotive industry leaders demonstrates their ability to balance ambitious goals with responsible execution, positioning them as the enduring leader in the space.”
Waymo says the funding round will support efforts in expanding Waymo One services in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, as well as in its Uber partnership program in Austin and Atlanta.
Waymo is now giving over 100,000 paid self-driving rides per week
“While AI is only just beginning to capture the public imagination, Waymo has been working to bring its endless possibilities to the world of physical transportation for years,” notes Egon Durban, Silver Lake’s co-CEO. “The Waymo Driver leads in earning trust by safely actualizing the value and potential of AI through cutting-edge research, practical solutions, and a vastly expanding scope and scale of real world experience.”
Throughout this year, Waymo has been expanding operations in California and elsewhere, and it has launched self-driving freeway trips around both Phoenix and San Francisco. The company also notes that it is now providing 100,000 paid self-driving rides per week, representing a tenfold increase from its levels last year.
Waymo also says it continues to test its sixth-generation Driver, a self-driving platform launched in August based on a Geely Zeekr electric SUV. Earlier this year, the company was approved for multiple expansions in California, including those to Los Angeles and additional areas of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Despite the approvals, Waymo has also faced some opposition from a handful of municipalities in California, and new policies could give individual communities more power to choose where the service can and can’t operate.
Meanwhile, the funding round also comes after Tesla unveiled its autonomous, two-seater Cybercab with no steering wheel or accelerator pedal, in addition to the larger Robovan, an autonomous bus, both based on its Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite. The company already has many drivers testing the camera-based software en masse, though it has yet to launch a paid service for driverless ride-hailing.
Many in the Tesla community believe that the company’s FSD software will make it easier to scale driverless ride-hailing services, given that it utilizes a neural network that’s trained by real-time human driving behavior—rather than operating on individual vehicle commands in geo-mapped areas.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles.
The figure appears on Tesla’s official safety page, which tracks performance data for FSD (Supervised) and other safety technologies.
Tesla has long emphasized that large-scale real-world data is central to improving its neural network-based approach to autonomy. Each mile driven with FSD (Supervised) engaged contributes additional edge cases and scenario training for the system.

The milestone also brings Tesla closer to a benchmark previously outlined by CEO Elon Musk. Musk has stated that roughly 10 billion miles of training data may be needed to achieve safe unsupervised self-driving at scale, citing the “long tail” of rare but complex driving situations that must be learned through experience.
The growth curve of FSD Supervised’s cumulative miles over the past five years has been notable.
As noted in data shared by Tesla watcher Sawyer Merritt, annual FSD (Supervised) miles have increased from roughly 6 million in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and 4.25 billion in 2025. In just the first 50 days of 2026, Tesla owners logged another 1 billion miles.
At the current pace, the fleet is trending towards hitting about 10 billion FSD Supervised miles this year. The increase has been driven by Tesla’s growing vehicle fleet, periodic free trials, and expanding Robotaxi operations, among others.
With the fleet now past 8.4 billion cumulative miles, Tesla’s supervised system is approaching that threshold, even as regulatory approval for fully unsupervised deployment remains subject to further validation and oversight.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk fires back after Wikipedia co-founder claims neutrality and dubs Grokipedia “ridiculous”
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Elon Musk fired back at Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales after the longtime online encyclopedia leader dismissed xAI’s new AI-powered alternative, Grokipedia, as a “ridiculous” idea that is bound to fail.
Musk’s response to Wales’ comments, which were posted on social media platform X, was short and direct: “Famous last words.”
Wales made the comments while answering questions about Wikipedia’s neutrality. According to Wales, Wikipedia prides itself on neutrality.
“One of our core values at Wikipedia is neutrality. A neutral point of view is non-negotiable. It’s in the community, unquestioned… The idea that we’ve become somehow ‘Wokepidea’ is just not true,” Wales said.
When asked about potential competition from Grokipedia, Wales downplayed the situation. “There is no competition. I don’t know if anyone uses Grokipedia. I think it is a ridiculous idea that will never work,” Wales wrote.
After Grokipedia went live, Larry Sanger, also a co-founder of Wikipedia, wrote on X that his initial impression of the AI-powered Wikipedia alternative was “very OK.”
“My initial impression, looking at my own article and poking around here and there, is that Grokipedia is very OK. The jury’s still out as to whether it’s actually better than Wikipedia. But at this point I would have to say ‘maybe!’” Sanger stated.
Musk responded to Sanger’s assessment by saying it was “accurate.” In a separate post, he added that even in its V0.1 form, Grokipedia was already better than Wikipedia.
During a past appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show, Sanger argued that Wikipedia has drifted from its original vision, citing concerns about how its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” framework categorizes publications by perceived credibility. As per Sanger, Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” list leans heavily left, with conservative publications getting effectively blacklisted in favor of their more liberal counterparts.
As of writing, Grokipedia has reportedly surpassed 80% of English Wikipedia’s article count.
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Tesla Sweden appeals after grid company refuses to restore existing Supercharger due to union strike
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons.
Tesla Sweden is seeking regulatory intervention after a Swedish power grid company refused to reconnect an already operational Supercharger station in Åre due to ongoing union sympathy actions.
The charging site was previously functioning before it was temporarily disconnected in April last year for electrical safety reasons. A temporary construction power cabinet supplying the station had fallen over, described by Tesla as occurring “under unclear circumstances.” The power was then cut at the request of Tesla’s installation contractor to allow safe repair work.
While the safety issue was resolved, the station has not been brought back online. Stefan Sedin, CEO of Jämtkraft elnät, told Dagens Arbete (DA) that power will not be restored to the existing Supercharger station as long as the electric vehicle maker’s union issues are ongoing.
“One of our installers noticed that the construction power had been backed up and was on the ground. We asked Tesla to fix the system, and their installation company in turn asked us to cut the power so that they could do the work safely.
“When everything was restored, the question arose: ‘Wait a minute, can we reconnect the station to the electricity grid? Or what does the notice actually say?’ We consulted with our employer organization, who were clear that as long as sympathy measures are in place, we cannot reconnect this facility,” Sedin said.
The union’s sympathy actions, which began in March 2024, apply to work involving “planning, preparation, new connections, grid expansion, service, maintenance and repairs” of Tesla’s charging infrastructure in Sweden.
Tesla Sweden has argued that reconnecting an existing facility is not equivalent to establishing a new grid connection. In a filing to the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate, the company stated that reconnecting the installation “is therefore not covered by the sympathy measures and cannot therefore constitute a reason for not reconnecting the facility to the electricity grid.”
Sedin, for his part, noted that Tesla’s issue with the Supercharger is quite unique. And while Jämtkraft elnät itself has no issue with Tesla, its actions are based on the unions’ sympathy measures against the electric vehicle maker.
“This is absolutely the first time that I have been involved in matters relating to union conflicts or sympathy measures. That is why we have relied entirely on the assessment of our employer organization. This is not something that we have made any decisions about ourselves at all.
“It is not that Jämtkraft elnät has a conflict with Tesla, but our actions are based on these sympathy measures. Should it turn out that we have made an incorrect assessment, we will correct ourselves. It is no more difficult than that for us,” the executive said.