Waymo Borrows $5 Billion and Widens the Map

SAN ANTONIO, Tex., Oct. 17 — SinceSince Wednesday, anyone here who downloads Waymo’s app can hail a car with no one in the driver’s seat, to the Riverwalk or to San Antonio International Airport. San Diego and Tampa opened to everyone the same day. Until then, Waymo had admitted riders in all three cities from waiting lists.

It was the least of three moves Waymo, the self-driving company majority-owned by Alphabet, made in nine days. On Oct. 8 it closed a $5 billion term loan, its first debt financing. On Friday it said Ontario had approved it to test in Toronto, its first Canadian city, where it aims to carry riders in 2028.

The loan matters most. Until now Waymo has been financed with equity, most recently a $16 billion round in February that valued it at $126 billion. A loan has to be paid back, on a schedule. Waymo’s first borrowing suggests the robotaxi business is passing from experiment to rollout, paid for as fleets and networks have long been, with debt as well as shares. Steve Fieler, its chief financial officer, called the loan “an important step in our evolution into a scaling commercial enterprise.”

PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street led the lenders, with Goldman Sachs as sole lead bookrunner.The LendersCapital Group, Loomis Sayles and T. Rowe Price were significant lenders. Apollo, Blue Owl, Diameter Capital Partners, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, HPS Investment Partners and Oaktree also took part. Waymo’s announcement gave no interest rate or loan duration. Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the deal, reported that it priced at 5.25 percentage points over the benchmark rate. The money, Waymo said, will “accelerate the continued expansion of our fully autonomous ride-hailing service across the United States and internationally.”

Expansion means hardware. TechCrunch puts Waymo’s fleet at roughly 4,000 robotaxis, 1,102 of them registered in Texas as of Sept. 24. More are arriving as the Ojai, a minivan built by China’s Zeekr and fitted with Waymo’s driving system in Arizona.The OjaiZeekr is a brand of China’s Geely Holding Group. Chinese-built vehicles face steep U.S. import tariffs, which TechCrunch reports are, for now, cutting the savings the Ojai was meant to bring. MoffettNathanson, a research firm that follows shipping records, said in September that Waymo was on track to import 5,100 of them by year’s end, TechCrunch reported.

Waymo carries riders in 15 U.S. cities, up from three two years ago. In March it said on X that it was serving 500,000 paid rides a week. On Alphabet’s April 29 earnings call, Sundar Pichai, its chief executive, said Waymo had “surpassed 500,000 fully autonomous rides per week, doubling in less than a year.”GOOGLNasdaq279.84▼3.98−1.4%Alphabet · Friday’s session In February, Waymo’s co-chief executive, Tekedra Mawakana, said it was “on track to serve over one million rides per week by the end of this year.” Its new Toronto page shows “500K+ trips / week”; none of this week’s announcements gave a higher figure.

Toronto will be slower. Waymo will first map the city with cars driven by hand, then test with trained specialists behind the wheel. A spokesperson for Ontario’s transportation minister told The Canadian Press in an email that the rollout would include a “credible jobs plan.” “No one should be pressing the panic button,” said Marc-André Way, president of the Canadian Taxi Association, as quoted by The Canadian Press.

Abroad, Toronto joins Tokyo, where Waymo and its partners plan a commercial launch in 2027; Munich, toward the end of 2027; and Singapore, in 2028. Waymo is also testing in London, where a rival is coming. On Oct. 8 Uber and the Chinese robotaxi company Pony.ai said they would begin testing Pony.ai’s Gen-7 cars there in the coming weeks, extending a service they began in Zagreb, Croatia, in August.

The Rival

Tesla is building its own car in its own factory. On Oct. 10 Tesla’s Robotaxi account on X said that a month after launch, more than 300 Cybercabs were serving Austin, “an 8x increase in 30 days.”The CybercabTesla’s two-seat robotaxi, built without a steering wheel or pedals. Tesla’s second-quarter update listed installed capacity in Texas for more than 125,000 a year, a figure it notes is not its current production rate. Texas registration records showed about 319 Cybercabs and 420 Model Y robotaxis as of Oct. 10, The Motley Fool reported; Tesla Mag, which reads the state register daily, counted the same on Oct. 11. This week Tesla extended Austin service to midnight, Not a Tesla App reported; in August, rides ended at 10 p.m.

Tesla has not disclosed, the Fool noted, how many rides the cars give or whether the service makes money. On Oct. 9 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a review of a petition alleging that Tesla’s robotaxis, with their automated driving system engaged, exceed posted speed limits in active school zones. The review covers an estimated 1,000 Model Y and Cybercab vehicles; the agency lists four incidents, none involving a crash or injury.A Petition, Not a FindingNHTSA opened the review “to evaluate the allegations and determine whether to grant or deny the petition.” Opening it is not a finding of a defect. Separately, Tesla has until Oct. 30 to answer an NHTSA special order in an audit of how it certified the Cybercab as meeting federal safety standards.

Tesla will report third-quarter results on Oct. 21, and Alphabet on Oct. 28; Mr. Pichai has used past calls to give Waymo’s weekly count. The figures to listen for are the ones missing this week: how many rides Tesla’s robotaxis give, and whether Waymo is on course for a million a week before the end of December.