Waymo has launched a transit credit pilot program in Los Angeles, following initial tests in San Francisco last year.
On Tuesday, Waymo announced in a press release that it is launching a two-month pilot program in the Southern California city, which will essentially pay $3.00 credits to riders who connect to seven eligible transit stations. The company, which is backed by Google’s parent company Alphabet, will run the program from February 4 through April 1, offering convenient routes to and from the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
In the announcement, the company says that credits will be added to rider accounts on the day following the ride, and they’ll then be usable for 60 days. Waymo also highlights the launch of the program arriving on Transit Equity Day, a holiday honoring civil rights hero Rosa Parks, whose birthday was on February 4.
The program will be used to study how Waymo One is used by riders as a first- and last-mile ride-hailing solution that it hopes to help integrate with public transportation options to make them more accessible. It says it also performed similar evaluations through its pilot program in San Francisco, which launched in October.
LA stations participating in the program are located at the following intersections/transit sites, as can also be seen on the map below:
- 5th and Arizona
- Lincoln and Jefferson
- Lincoln and Venice
- Sepulveda and Exposition
- Sepulveda and Washington
- Union Station and FlyAway
- UCLA Gateway
Credit: Waymo
READ MORE ON WAYMO: Waymo study analyzes collisions with vulnerable road users
Waymo, Tesla and commercial robotaxi services
Waymo One is the service and app the company uses for its driverless electric robotaxis, which currently offers paid rides to users in the Bay Area and around Los Angeles, as well as in Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas. The company began paid LA rides in November, officially dropping the need for users to join a waitlist to ride.
In all of the aforementioned areas, users simply need to download the Waymo One app to hail a ride. The company has also announced plans to launch in Miami, Florida in the coming months.
Additionally, the firm says it’s operating 150,000 paid rides each week, resulting in a weekly reduction of over 220 tons of carbon emissions, and up from its 100,000 rides per week announced in August. In December, the company also announced plans to launch a pilot program in Japan, slated to begin this year.
Waymo is currently the only driverless ride-hailing company operating paid rides at such a large scale, with competitors like Amazon-owned Zoox rolling out initial services. Meanwhile, Tesla aims to begin offering unsupervised robotaxi services in June, following its unveiling of the steering wheel-less, two-seat Cybercab in October.
?: Our FULL first ride in the @Tesla Cybercab pic.twitter.com/6gR7OgKRCz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
In addition to the Cybercab, which is expected to offer a similar paid ride-hailing service to Waymo One, Tesla currently sells its Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, which the autonomous vehicle will utilize, as either a monthly subscription or one-time purchase to owners.
Tesla also teased a ride-hailing app interface as early as last April in its Q1 earnings Shareholder Deck, showing off a user’s ability to summon rides, set temperature controls in the vehicle, and follow along with navigation. Such a service has also been promised to Tesla owners for several years, and it’s eventually expected to let them deploy their own personal vehicles to autonomously give rides and generate income when not in use.
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.
Waymo valued at over $45 billion following latest financing round: report
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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:
It’s coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.
Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.
Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.
The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.
Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.
Tesla is starting to prepare for the launch of the Optimus robot in its smartphone app, new coding strings show. Elon Musk has referred to Optimus as what will be the greatest-selling product of any kind of all time, and now, Tesla is getting ready for its launch.
Tesla’s smartphone app had several first-time mentions of the Optimus program, according to Tesla App Updates, who intially reported on the appearance. Here’s what they found:
A Dedicated “Robot” Phone Key Authentication
Tesla is working on a Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, authentication that is specifically for robots. This does not only apply to Optimus, though, as Robotaxi, which is Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, might also identify vehicles within the fleet as robots as well.
Tesla shows rapid teardown of Model S and X lines, paving the way for Optimus at Fremont
Essentially, pairing your phone as a key to anything Tesla identifies as a robot to a “whitelist” of authorized devices. Optimus, Robotaxi, or other products that fall into this category will only respond if the device trying to communicate with it is authorized.
This is a great security feature that will eliminate at least face-value and low-level threats.
Home Data Collection and System Alerts
This appears to be somewhat of a neural network for Optimus within your house. There will be a dedicated screen that asks for consent to collect both video and spatial data while Optimus performs in-home tasks. Everything from vacuuming, washing dishes, dusting, and other activities will be tracked.
There will also be a comprehensive alert system that will track everything from low battery to mechanical issues.
Other Changes
Most of the changes tracked in this particular app update are related to Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, and include things such as image assets for new features, a preview of the new custom wraps feature, and other unique features.
You can check out our coverage on what is included with the 2026 Summer Update here:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever
