Uber and Waymo end robotaxi pilot in Phoenix: But it’s not a loss for either

Uber $UBER and Waymo (a subsidiary of Alphabet $GOOG) have confirmed the end of their joint robotaxi pilot program in Phoenix. Neither company is framing it as a failure, but rather as a “graduation” – it was an intentionally limited deployment of roughly a dozen vehicles that helped quickly launch Austin and Atlanta, where hundreds of Waymo vehicles are now available exclusively through Uber.

An interesting detail: the Phoenix Waymo vehicles are not being retired, but are transitioning to autonomous food delivery for DoorDash – a direct competitor of Uber Eats. Uber, for its part, plans to partner with another AV partner in Phoenix, though it hasn’t revealed the name yet.

Uber’s long-term strategy is clear: don’t depend on a single autonomous vehicle developer, but become the platform through which all of them operate. The number of AV rides via Uber has grown more than 10x year-over-year, and the service runs in eight cities with plans to expand to up to 15 by year-end. In the pipeline are Zurich with WeRide, Madrid (launched in June), and Houston with Nuro and Lucid in 2027.

Waymo, meanwhile, is charting its own course – currently handling over 500,000 paid rides per week, and in February the company closed a $16 billion funding round at a $126 billion valuation, with Alphabet remaining the majority investor. The safety data speaks for itself: over more than 220 million autonomous miles, Waymo showed 94% fewer crashes with serious or fatal injuries than human drivers in the same areas.

So the end in Phoenix looks more like a redeployment of forces ahead of the next expansion phase than a crack in the partnership.

What do you think – will Uber’s bet on the aggregator role pay off, or will the one who owns the technology ultimately win?