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Waymo\u2019s co-CEO, Tekedra Mawakana, had a clear message during her interview on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 stage Monday: \u201cIt is imperative that we scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mawakana was speaking in the context of how Waymo balances fundraising (and burning through that money) with eventually achieving profitability. But she was also clear in the interview that she believes Waymo can increase road safety by reaching that scale. <\/p>\n
All this helps explain why the company has been on an expansion tear this year and expects to launch in many more U.S. cities \u2014 D.C., Miami, Denver, Dallas, Seattle, and Nashville \u2014 as well as in London<\/a> in 2026. It\u2019s a furious pace that has seen the autonomous vehicle company leverage multiple partnerships with companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Avis.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the end of 2026, you should expect us to be offering 1 million trips per week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Mawakana spent a lot of time during the interview with TechCrunch transportation editor Kirsten Korosec talking about the challenges of safely reaching that kind of scale.<\/p>\n The Waymo co-CEO maintained that the company is operating at a level that is safer than the typical human driver. And while she didn\u2019t name names, she took a shot at competitors, saying they aren\u2019t doing enough to\u00a0prove that their autonomous vehicle technology is truly safe<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is incumbent upon [them] to be transparent about what\u2019s happening,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd if you are not being transparent, then it is my view that you are not doing what is necessary in order to actually earn the right to make the road safer.\u201d<\/p>\n Her comments come as the company continues to iron out edge cases during its expansion \u2014 with one of the most recent incidents coming in Atlanta, Georgia, where a Waymo vehicle pulled out in front of a stopped school bus, leading to an investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n Waymo itself recently released a report claiming its vehicles are already five times safer than most human drivers, and 12 times safer with respect to pedestrians.<\/p>\n Still, Waymo vehicles have been caught making a number of head-scratching decisions. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to recognize, it\u2019s not going to be perfection, but that doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t be accountable for transparency,\u201d Mawakana said onstage. \u201cI think\u00a0\u2026 we really worry as a company about those days. You know, we don\u2019t say whether, we say when, and we plan for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Mawakana also said Waymo doesn\u2019t think in terms of \u201chow many [incidents] are allowable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know they\u2019re going to happen because our cars are on the road with humans, and unfortunately, right now, the state of the roads and the state of human driving is there is a lot of deaths, and there are a lot of injuries being caused on the roadways,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n And when asked whether the public would accept a death caused by a robotaxi in the face of the promise of greater safety, Mawakana said: \u201cI think that society will.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n