Driverless robotaxis are going global, but the self-driving dream still hits bumps

Humans have been obsessed with self-driving cars since time immemorial. In films, the fascination dates to 1927. Metropolis, a silent feature deemed both silly and the first of its kind science fiction epic, imagined a futuristic city where sleek, automated vehicles traversed along elevated highways in a highly coordinated fashion. As they say, if you can imagine it then you can make it and so, humankind too, has been on a mission to make them ever since. It was not easy. It took a lot of time. But finally, we seem to be getting there.
Earlier in the year, when Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage of I/O, to give the developer community a sneak-peek into all the AI his company was preparing to unleash on the world, he left the keynote with one very personal anecdote. He told everybody about the time when his parents were visiting him in San Francisco. The first thing they wanted to do was to ride in a Waymo. Pichai had obviously used Waymo taxis before but watching his father, who is in his 80s, being totally amazed by self-driving technology made him see the progress in a whole new light, he admitted.
If you can read between the lines, this was all the assurance that anybody needed, that the “future” has officially moved from the laboratory to the curb. Not just in San Francisco, but even if you live in Beijing, Phoenix, or Abu Dhabi, the sight of a steering wheel spinning by itself is no longer a reason to be spooked and call the cops: it is just how people get to brunch today.
According to the RoboTaxi Global Market Report 2025, the global robotaxi market is growing exponentially, up from $1.19 billion in 2024 to a projected $2 billion-plus this year. The increasing penetration of autonomous technology and need for sustainable and eco-friendly travel is a big growth driver. With improvements, scale and affordability pitching in eventually, the market size is expected to grow further, reaching tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars by 2030. Waymo clocked over 20 million miles and 14 million paid rides in 2025 following concerted expansion across Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.