“Waymo, the self-driving taxi company owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said on Monday that it had raised $16 billion to fuel its plans for global expansion.

The company’s latest funding round values it at about $126 billion, according to the announcement. The round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global and Sequoia Capital in addition to Alphabet.

The infusion of money could put Waymo further ahead in the growing field of robot taxi companies, such as Amazon’s Zoox and Elon Musk’s fledgling Tesla robot taxi service. Ride-hailing services such as Lyft and Uber have also struck partnerships with autonomous vehicle companies, including Waymo, to offer driverless rides.

Waymo said it would use the money to fuel growth plans, which include rolling out its commercial service and road testing with a safety driver in more than 20 cities this year…

Waymo said it ‘more than tripled’ its volume of rides last year to 15 million. The company started offering its robot taxi service in Phoenix in 2020 and has expanded to San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami and Austin, Texas.  In recent months, Waymo has been making plans to increase its presence across the United States and internationally in places such as London and Tokyo. It also recently expanded its Bay Area service to include rides on the highway heading as far south as San Jose, about 40 miles away.

Last week, the company said it had started offering some rides to San Francisco International Airport, with a larger rollout in the coming months, as the Bay Area prepared to host major events such as the Super Bowl on Sunday and World Cup matches this summer.”

From New York Times.

“India is electrifying faster and using fewer fossil fuels per capita than China did at similar levels of economic development, according to a new report from the think tank Ember.

India’s coal and oil consumption per capita is a fraction of what China’s was at similar income levels, mainly because India has access to solar panels and electric cars at a much lower price than China did about a decade ago.

India and other countries may become ‘electrostates’ that meet most of their energy needs through electricity generated from clean sources, as the cost of electricity technologies continues to fall and countries seek energy independence and economic growth.”

From Bloomberg.

“United Arab Emirates, a global leader in autonomous driving technology, and Uber Technologies, Inc. today announced the launch of Level 4 fully driverless Robotaxi commercial operations in Abu Dhabi. This marks the first driverless deployment in the Middle East, as well as the first city outside the United States to host fully driverless operations on the Uber platform. The launch was supported by the world’s first city-level fully driverless Robotaxi permit outside the U.S.”

From Uber.

“Amazon’s Zoox will start giving free robotaxi rides through parts of San Francisco as it accelerates its attempt to challenge Waymo’s early lead in the race to transport passengers in self-driving vehicles.

The expansion announced Tuesday will be confined to a few major San Francisco neighborhoods and limited to people who signed up on a waiting list to ride in Zoox’s gondola-shaped robotaxis, which have no steering wheel. The San Francisco launch comes less than three months after the Amazon-owned robotaxi company launched its first ride-hailing service along the Las Vegas strip.

But Zoox still doesn’t charge people to ride in its robotaxis, something Waymo has been doing since its debut in Phoenix five years ago. The free rides are the next major milestone before charging fares like Waymo and traditional ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, as Amazon tried to make inroads in autonomous driving — a journey that began in 2020 when the e-commerce Goliath bought Zoox for $1.2 billion.”

From Associated Press.