The City of Austin Texas government has set the official indicator to Tesla Robotaxi being deployed in Austin. Waymo is considered in the deployment phase.
Waymo in 2025 in Austin has 43 official incidents. Waymo officially launched its autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas in March 4 2025. Waymo had 11 incidents in March, 3 in April and 14 in May and 9 in june.
Sawyer Merritt says there were about 25-30 people in the invited trial and there were about 500+ rides in the first 3-4 days. This would be about 2500 miles of driving. There was one safety incident (stopping to avoid a UPS truck backing into the Tesla and causing a low speed fenderbender – which the UPS driver might have avoided even if the Tesla stopped at half the distance) There was a non-safety disengagement for navigation.
There are 100 waymo in Austin and the Waymo service area (37 square miles) is double the size of the Tesla service area (19-20 square miles) at this time. Tesla has about 11 cars in the commercial service fleet but there are another 50+ Tesla testing around Austin. Waymo had 17 safety issues in 2025, 15 blocking traffic, 7 nuisance, 3 ignore APO direction and 1 near miss.
Tesla is in its 5th day of operation and has 1 official incident per the Austin government. Tesla had one safety concern so far in 5 day in June. Waymo has 5 safety concern, 1 blocking traffic and 3 nuisance in 26 days of June.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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