Short answer: not yet, but the pressure on driving jobs is starting to build. Waymo plans to grow from about 4,000 robotaxis to 20,000 by the end of 2027, according to Semafor, and Tesla said on October 21 it will start selling its driverless Cybercab by the end of 2026. That is still small next to the roughly 455,700 U.S. taxi, shuttle and chauffeur jobs, so the near-term risk is local and city by city, not nationwide.
Key takeaways
- Waymo aims for 8,000 robotaxis by the end of 2026 and 20,000 by the end of 2027, Semafor reported on October 19, citing people familiar with the plan. Waymo declined to comment, so treat these as reported goals.
- Tesla says its robotaxi service now runs in six cities, and it plans to let the first customer cars join that fleet around the second quarter of 2027.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics still projects driver jobs to grow 9% from 2025 to 2035, mostly from ride-hailing. Its outlook does not mention driverless cars.
- Waymo’s own data shows 82% fewer injury crashes than human drivers over 270 million miles, but it has also issued several software recalls in the past year.
How many robotaxis will Waymo have?
What happened: On October 19, Semafor reported that Waymo, the self-driving company owned by Google’s parent Alphabet, has about 4,000 cars today. People familiar with the matter told Semafor it is aiming for 8,000 by the end of 2026 and 20,000 by the end of 2027. The plan is funded in part by $5 billion that Waymo borrowed from private credit lenders, its first time raising debt. Waymo declined to comment to Semafor, but said on its website that it raised the money to grow in the U.S. and abroad.
Waymo already runs in 15 U.S. cities, according to Semafor, and is bringing rides to Toronto. It also opened a site in Nashville, in partnership with Lyft, to charge, clean and maintain its cars.
Why it matters: Doubling a fleet in under three months, then more than doubling again, would move robotaxis from a novelty to a real part of city traffic. Each new car competes directly with human ride-hail and taxi drivers in the neighborhoods it serves.
The other side: These are targets from unnamed sources, not confirmed results. Fleet goals in this industry have slipped before. And the Nashville depot is a reminder that robotaxis still need human workers to clean, charge and fix them.
What did Tesla say about robotaxis on October 21?
What happened: On its third quarter 2026 earnings call, Tesla AI software executive Ashok Elluswamy said, “we do 6 cities now,” and that “next month, we’ll be launching in Dallas.” Chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja said the company’s total driverless miles grew eightfold during the quarter. Engineering vice president Lars Moravy said, “we’re trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026.” The Cybercab is a two-seat car with no steering wheel.
Elluswamy also gave a new target for Tesla owners: “We suspect somewhere around Q2 next year is when we can turn on some of the first customer vehicles to be part of the Robotaxi fleet.” Elon Musk said, “I think Tesla will end up doing a majority of all passenger miles on Earth.”
Why it matters: Tesla was blunt about the labor math. Explaining how its prices compare, Taneja said, “you’re comparing us with rideshare, which has a driver in there, and we don’t.” Removing the driver is the core of the business case.
The other side: TechCrunch noted the customer timeline is another delay for owners who bought or subscribed to Tesla’s self-driving software years ago. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal car safety regulator, opened an investigation in September into how Tesla certified the Cybercab as meeting safety standards. TechCrunch reports the outcome could decide whether the car can legally operate at all.
How many driving jobs could robotaxis affect?
The jobs most directly in the path are taxi drivers, ride-hail drivers, shuttle drivers and chauffeurs. Here is what federal data shows.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| U.S. taxi, shuttle and chauffeur jobs (2025) | 455,700 |
| Projected change, 2025 to 2035 | Up 9% |
| Openings per year, on average | About 55,900 |
| Median pay (May 2025) | $37,960 a year, or $18.25 an hour |
| Taxi drivers who are self-employed | 86%, including independent contractors |
| Waymo robotaxis today (reported) | About 4,000 |
| Waymo target, end of 2027 (reported) | 20,000 |
Two things stand out. First, the BLS projection expects growth, driven by demand for ride-hailing, and its outlook page does not mention autonomous vehicles at all. That projection may not fully reflect robotaxis. Second, a robotaxi is not one-for-one with a driver. A car without a driver can run far more hours than one person’s shift, so each car can replace more than one driver’s worth of trips in a busy city. Nobody has published a reliable count of how many driver hours robotaxis have already displaced.
The workers most exposed are gig drivers. Most are independent contractors, so if robotaxis cut into their work, the loss would show up as fewer rides and lower pay, not as a layoff headline.
Are robotaxis safer than human drivers?
The best available data is promising, with caveats. Waymo reported in September that over more than 270 million fully driverless miles through June 2026, in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco, its cars had 82% fewer injury-causing crashes and 95% fewer crashes with serious injury or worse than human drivers on the same roads. Crashes injuring pedestrians were 93% lower.
That is Waymo’s own analysis against its own human benchmark, not an independent audit. And the cars still make mistakes people would not. In June, Waymo recalled nearly 4,000 robotaxis and pulled them off freeways after at least 13 cases of driving into closed construction zones, TechCrunch reported. Earlier, in May, it paused service in five cities after cars repeatedly drove into flooded roads, The Next Web reported. In 2025, Austin’s school district documented 19 times Waymo cars passed its stopped school buses, which led to an NHTSA investigation and a software recall. Waymo said no one was hurt in those school bus cases, according to NPR.
The other side: who pushes back, and who benefits
Unions are fighting for human operators. The Teamsters have backed state bills such as California’s AB 33, which in 2025 passed the state Assembly and would require a trained human operator in autonomous vehicles that deliver goods. “We can’t allow for a regulatory regime that replaces professional drivers with rudimentary navigation systems,” said Chris Griswold, a Teamsters leader in Pomona, California.
Supporters point to real benefits. If the safety numbers hold up at scale, fewer people would be hurt or killed in crashes. Robotaxis can also serve riders who cannot drive, such as some older adults and people with disabilities, at any hour. New jobs do appear in fleet depots, remote support and maintenance, though there is no public data yet on how many, or whether they pay as well as driving.
The TrustNoRobot Risk Check
| Question | Robotaxis and driving jobs |
|---|---|
| Exposure | High for ride-hail and taxi drivers in cities where robotaxis operate. Low today for drivers elsewhere. |
| Evidence | Moderate. Fleet and safety numbers come mostly from companies. No solid public data yet on lost driver earnings. |
| Speed | Medium and speeding up. Waymo’s reported plan is a fivefold fleet increase by the end of 2027. Tesla’s timelines often slip. |
| Cushion | Weak. Most drivers are independent contractors with few protections. Regulators, recalls and union-backed bills slow, but do not stop, the rollout. |
What this means for you
If you drive for a living in a city with robotaxis, watch your own numbers: rides per hour, earnings per hour, and how often you see driverless cars in your busiest zones. Those will move before any official job count does. Work that needs a human touch, like helping riders with mobility needs, handling luggage or fleet maintenance, is harder to automate. Commercial licenses and mechanical skills may travel further than ride-hail experience alone.
To size up your own risk, try our Job Exposure Explorer and our five-step guide to measuring AI risk to your job. For how robots are moving into factories, read our look at humanoid robots and factory jobs.
Frequently asked questions
Will robotaxis replace Uber and Lyft drivers?
In some cities, they are starting to compete for the same rides. Nationally, robotaxi fleets are still small: Waymo has about 4,000 cars, compared with about 455,700 U.S. taxi, shuttle and chauffeur jobs.
How many robotaxis does Waymo plan to have?
Semafor reported a goal of 8,000 by the end of 2026 and 20,000 by the end of 2027, citing people familiar with the plan. Waymo declined to comment.
When will Tesla owners get driverless self-driving?
Tesla said on October 21 that it expects the first customer cars to join its robotaxi fleet around the second quarter of 2027. Tesla has missed past self-driving timelines.
Are robotaxis safer than human drivers?
Waymo’s data shows 82% fewer injury crashes than human drivers over 270 million miles, but that is the company’s own analysis, and it has issued several software recalls in the past year.
Sources
- Semafor, “Waymo plans to quintuple its fleet” (Oct. 19, 2026)
- The Motley Fool, “Tesla (TSLA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript” (Oct. 22, 2026)
- TechCrunch, “Tesla says it will start selling Cybercabs by end of year” (Oct. 21, 2026)
- The Next Web, “Waymo plans to grow its robotaxi fleet fivefold to 20,000 by 2027” (Oct. 20, 2026)
- Waymo, safety data update (Sept. 24, 2026)
- TechCrunch, “Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them driving into highway construction zones” (June 18, 2026)
- NPR, Waymo school bus recall (Dec. 6, 2025)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Taxi Drivers, Shuttle Drivers, and Chauffeurs (accessed Oct. 22, 2026)
- International Brotherhood of Teamsters, “Teamsters-Supported Autonomous Vehicle Bill Passes California State Assembly” (June 3, 2025)
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