自1995年完成3,000英里无手驾驶试验以来，美国机器人出租车已发展为付费车队，其中Waymo拥有2,500辆车，在五座城市运营，并在两年内将月活跃用户提升到超过100万，增长逾十倍。尽管如此，仍有约四分之三的美国人表示对无人出租车几乎不信任，而曾乘坐过的人信心却高出56个百分点。

从Alphabet和亚马逊到Uber、梅赛德斯-奔驰与英伟达，众多企业都在追逐美国自动驾驶市场，Uber首席执行官估计其规模在现有每年约500亿美元网约车支出之上还可达到1万亿美元。但目前机器人出租车每英里运营成本约为7–9美元，而传统网约车约为2–3美元，自用车约1美元，部分原因在于单车成本仍高达约13万至20万美元，尽管激光雷达价格已从约10万美元降至略高于1,000美元。

Waymo的4级机器人出租车已经行驶了2,500万英里，其财产损失理赔比平均人类驾驶少88%，人身伤害理赔少92%，正与采用更廉价纯摄像头2–3级方案的特斯拉及专注软件的Wayve等公司竞争。麦肯锡预计还需约十年时间才能将机器人出租车成本压低到每英里2美元以下，而Uber依托其4,200万月活用户、英伟达则向包括特斯拉在内的车企出售数以万计GPU（仅特斯拉就使用超过10万块），共同推动更大规模、更安全、且更便宜的自动驾驶出行竞赛。

Since a 3,000-mile hands-free drive in 1995, U.S. robotaxis have grown into paid fleets, led by Waymo’s 2,500-car service in five cities and over 1 million monthly active users, more than tenfold in two years. Yet three-quarters of Americans still express little or no trust, even though confidence is 56 percentage points higher among people who have ridden in a robotaxi.

Companies from Alphabet and Amazon to Uber, Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia are chasing a U.S. self-driving market that Uber’s CEO pegs at $1 trillion on top of today’s $50 billion in annual ride-hailing spend. But current robotaxis cost an estimated $7–9 per mile versus $2–3 for ride-hailing and about $1 for private cars, partly because vehicles today cost roughly $130,000–$200,000 each even as lidar prices have plunged from about $100,000 to little more than $1,000.

Waymo’s Level 4 robotaxis, which logged 25 million miles with 88% fewer property-damage and 92% fewer bodily-injury claims than average human drivers, compete with Tesla’s cheaper camera-only Level 2–3 approach and other software-focused players like Wayve. McKinsey expects it will take around a decade to push robotaxi operating costs below $2 per mile, while Uber leverages its 42 million MAUs and Nvidia sells tens of thousands of GPUs—over 100,000 to Tesla alone—as the ecosystem races toward large-scale, safer and cheaper autonomous mobility.