What’s a Waymo Anyway?

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The Motley Fool

Business, Investing

4.3 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Waymo is in expansion mode as competitors fail to get fully autonomous vehicles (without a safety driver) off the ground. We discuss Waymo’s approach and whether there’s a sustainable lead in autonomy. Plus, what other stocks should you have on your radar in 2026? Travis Hoium, Rachel Warren, and Jon Quast discuss: - Waymo’s dominance- Can Waymo bring costs down?- AV stocks to watch- The future of ride-sharing Companies discussed: Uber (UBER), Lyft (LYFT), Alphabet (GOOG), WeRide (WRD), Doordash (DASH). Host: Travis HoiumGuests: Rachel Warren, Jon QuastEngineer: Bart Shannon Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What is a Waymo anyway?
0:07.0	Motley Full Money starts now.
0:13.0	Welcome to Motley Full Money.
0:15.0	I'm Travis Hoyum, joined by Rachel Warren and John Quast.
0:18.0	Guys, we have got to talk about Waymo today.
0:20.0	We've been hearing about autonomous driving from companies like Tesla for a very long time.
0:24.9	It's about a decade ago that Elon Musk said that Tesla's were going to be able to drive
0:28.8	themselves across the country.
0:30.5	It's a huge part of their valuation.
0:33.2	But they've been stuck in test mode in Austin.
0:36.5	And slowly but surely, Waymo is really taking over this autonomous vehicle market with no safety driver. That's a big caveat here. And that's what I think is really interesting and worth sort of diving into as we have this holiday week. It's a little bit of a slow news week. So let's talk about something that could be really impactful to a lot of different companies. Waymo's completing over 250,000 rides.
0:54.9	By the way, that's about eight months old at this point, so it's probably significantly
0:58.6	more than that.
1:00.1	Rachel, I'm going to start with you.
1:01.1	Is Waymo already winning the autonomous vehicle market before anyone else really gets off
1:06.6	the ground?
1:07.3	I think for now, yes.
1:08.6	They have a significant lead.
1:10.6	As you noted, Waymo's offering
1:11.8	fully driverless rides to the public. And this is in major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles,
1:16.8	Phoenix, and the list keeps growing. And there's been this very consistent strategy of methodical
1:22.8	deployment. On the other hand, you know, Tesla's public service, even in Austin, as you noted, requires
	...

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