Californians now travel millions of miles each month in driverless taxis

After only two years, California’s driverless taxis now transport passengers for more than four million miles per month. Although they still make up only a fraction of taxi trips in the state, they are expanding quickly.

This chart shows the monthly distance traveled in driverless trips in California. It measures the total number of passenger-miles, summing up the distance traveled by all passengers.

In August 2023, California regulators fully approved self-driving taxi services in San Francisco for companies Cruise and Waymo. However, Cruise stopped operating in late 2023 due to safety and regulatory issues, so the recent growth reflects only Waymo’s service.

Trips stayed under half a million miles per month until mid-2024. But since then, growth has taken off. Within a year, usage multiplied eightfold, climbing past four million miles by May 2025, the latest data available.

This is a new chart on Our World in Data — we will update it every quarter based on the latest reports →

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