Alphabet announced at its quarterly reporting conference that it will invest another $5 billion in its autonomous vehicle division Waymo. “This new round of funding will enable Waymo to continue building the world’s leading autonomous vehicle company,” said Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat. Waymo represents an “important example” of Alphabet’s long-term investment, the executive added.
Image source: waymo.com
Alphabet’s quarterly revenue in the Other Bets business, which includes Waymo, amounted to $365 million – a year earlier, this figure was $285 million. At the same time, losses in the direction increased from $813 million to $1.13 billion. Waymo customers make 50,000 transactions weekly trips by robotaxi, and to date the company has completed 2 million trips, said the holding’s CEO Sundar Pichai. In June, the company eliminated the waiting list and made robotaxi rides available to everyone in San Francisco.
During the first round of financing in 2020, the company raised $2.25 billion. In 2021, another round was held, during which $2.5 billion was raised from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Fidelity Management & Research Company.
Alphabet has decided to increase its investment in Waymo, while the company’s competitor, Cruise (part of General Motors), said that the production of the fully driverless car Origin was postponed indefinitely. Tesla also announced that the presentation of the CyberCab robotaxi has been postponed from August to October 10.