But Waymo Driver does make mistakes. Last June, while on the way to pick up a passenger in Phoenix, a Waymo self-driving taxi crashed into a telephone pole. No one was hurt, but the company recalled all 672 autonomous vehicles it was operating at the time for a software update. There was also a 444-vehicle crash-related recall earlier this year and 2 vehicles were recalled in December 2023, again for software updates.

In the six months to 2024, Waymo vehicles were involved in 17 crashes and five other incidents involving potential violations of traffic safety laws. There were no injuries reported.

According to an analysis of US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data made by Craft Law Firm, a total of
3,979 accidents
involving autonomous vehicles were reported between 2019 and June 17, 2024. After more than doubling to 1,450 in 2022, the number dropped to 1,353 in 2023 and was down to 473 in the first half of 2024, demonstrating that safety has improved while the number of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles on the road, and the number of miles driven, has greatly increased.

In October 2024, Waymo reported that its self-driving taxis were providing more than 150,000 paid rides per week – up from about 100,000 in August and 50,000 last May – over a total distance of more than one million miles.

Of the 3,979 accidents reported to the NHTSA, Tesla accounted for 2,146, Waymo for 415, GM for 219, Cruise for 187, Honda for 155, and Subaru, Toyota, Ford, BMW, Kia, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and some 40 other companies for the remainder. Cruise was acquired by GM in 2016 and shut down in December 2024. This was also a setback for Honda , which had formed a partnership with GM to develop self-driving vehicles and invested in Cruise.

Citing a study by the iSeeCars website, Road & Track reports that Tesla has the highest fatal accident rate among auto brands in the US. There is even a tesladeaths website, which says it“is a record of Tesla accidents that involved a driver, occupant, cyclist, motorcyclist, or pedestrian death, whether or not the Tesla or its driver were at fault,” with“as much related crash data as possible.” The website, which was updated on October 20, notes 51 fatalities related to Tesla Autopilot and two related to FSD (Full Self-Driving).

This is important because, as The Wall Street Journal reported in August,“Since 2021, Tesla has reported over 1,200 crashes related to its driver assistance system called Autopilot to federal regulators,” and the NHTSA has“tied at least 14 fatalities to the tech[nology]. But it's been hard for the public to understand the role Autopilot plays in crashes because NHTSA's reports are heavily redacted. Tesla considers information about Autopilot proprietary, and key details like the crash narrative and even the exact date are obscured in public reports.”

In the US, Waymo's self-driving taxis are currently operating in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with commercial service in Austin, Atlanta and Miami scheduled to start in 2025. In Austin, a limited test service began in October.

Tesla's much-hyped robotaxi, which it also calls Cybercab , probably won't be on the road until late 2026 at the earliest. At its public unveiling in October, CEO Elon Musk said it would be in production“before 2027.” Cybercab has been driving Tesla's stock price higher, but not much else. Furthermore, Tesla has been in Japan since 2014, but there are very few of its vehicles on the road.

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Meanwhile, a Japanese venture called Turing is working on autonomous driving software that uses neural networks to transform camera imagery directly into driving commands to enable a self-driving vehicle to go anywhere in all conditions,“equipped with human-like knowledge and decision-making capabilities.”

Believing that“what is necessary for autonomous driving is not good eyes but a good brain,” Turing is developing generative AI that“directly issues driving instructions from camera images ... without using many sensors or high-precision maps.” Its biggest challenge now appears to be catching up and keeping up with Waymo.

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