Alphabet's self-driving car company Waymo, under Google's parent company, has just completed a $5.6 billion round of financing, planning to use this fund to expand its self-driving taxi services in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, USA, and may expand to new markets like Austin and Atlanta.

On Friday, October 25th, Eastern Time, CNBC reported that this Series C financing brought Waymo's total capital raised to over $11 billion, with previous rounds raising $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion. Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet, announced in July of this year that the parent company will commit to investing up to $5 billion in Waymo over several years.

This funding round was led by Alphabet, with early investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity Investments, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price also participating in the investment.

Currently, Waymo provides self-driving taxi services in several major cities in the USA, offering over 0.1 million trips to passengers every week. Passengers can book rides through the Waymo One app.

The competition in the USA's autonomous taxi market is heating up.

Waymo's co-CEOs, Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov, stated in an interview with CNBC that the new funding will be used to expand their business and advance the commercial application of Waymo Driver technology. They announced Waymo's plans to launch its self-driving taxi service in Texas, specifically in Austin, potential rival Tesla's headquarters, through a partnership with Uber.

Although Tesla's CEO Musk announced this week that they will launch autonomous ride-hailing services in Texas and California next year, currently, Waymo still maintains a leading position in the self-driving field. Tesla still needs to upgrade their semi-automated system, so their cars still require human drivers for now.

Waymo's self-driving taxis are welcomed by women and parents for their safety. They believe this service is safer than traditional taxis as there are no unfamiliar human drivers. Some parents use this service to send their children to school.

However, American automated car manufacturers still need to prove that their technology is safer than taxis and trucks with human drivers. As previously reported by CNBC, a survey by the Pew Research Center shows that nearly two-thirds of American respondents said they would not be willing to ride in a self-driving passenger vehicle given the opportunity.

Therefore, Waymo is actively improving the safety of its automated driving technology. Despite occasional traffic jams or wrong turns on the road, or even being involved in collision accidents, CNBC understands that these accidents have not caused any known deaths or serious injuries.

In contrast, Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, was once a competitor of Waymo in the United States but temporarily suspended operations due to an accident in October 2023. In that incident, a pedestrian was first hit by a human driver in another car and then dragged 20 feet by Cruise's self-driving car. Cruise is now working to resume services and planning to collaborate with Uber.

While many companies are testing self-driving cars on public roads in the USA, Waymo is the only one truly offering self-driving taxi services in several major cities. According to an analysis by Timothy B. Lee, the author of Understanding AI, Waymo's self-reported data shows that their vehicles have a collision rate "much lower than human drivers" on public roads.

Waymo has announced that their next-generation self-driving taxis will be based on the Geely Zeekr model, equipped with custom sensors and ai "driver." Furthermore, Waymo has entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Hyundai to include Hyundai's Ioniq 5 electric cars in their self-driving taxi fleet.

Additionally, Waymo plans to test its self-driving vehicles in harsher winter weather conditions, including testing in northern California, northern New York, and Michigan, in the hopes of expanding services to more areas in the future and eventually achieve internationalization.