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Waymo’s commercial robotaxi ramp-up looks expansive, both in geographic reach and in ridership. And by almost every measure, it is — until you pay attention to where the bulk of those robotaxis are actually showing up.

The numbers over the past two years reflect the kind of commercial rollout you’d expect from a deep-pocketed company like Waymo, which spun out of Google and still counts Alphabet as its majority owner. In September 2024, Waymo was operating in just three cities — Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Today, it offers robotaxi service in 15 U.S. cities, with most of those commercial launches occurring in the past year. Ridership has skyrocketed, too, with Waymo now averaging 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week.

But a closer look at its fleet shows a company concentrating its efforts in just two states. About 80% of Waymo’s roughly 4,000 robotaxis are in California and Texas, and Texas is where the action is now: Waymo’s fleet there has grown by nearly half in the past three weeks, fueled by a new Chinese-built minivan the company is betting will help it scale, even as tariffs drive up its costs.

The other 800 or so vehicles are spread across cities in other states, including Arizona and Florida, another burgeoning hot spot. Most are the familiar white Jaguar I-Pace electric SUVs, but a growing number are the new minivans — a modified Zeekr RT that Waymo has branded “Ojai.”

Waymo’s focus on California is no surprise. It is headquartered in Silicon Valley, and much of its early testing and development work was conducted there. Plus, a segment of the population there is inclined to adopt tech at its earliest stages.

The recent growth in Texas is more interesting. Waymo has increased its Texas fleet by 49% in the past three weeks, according to state vehicle registrations and data from the Texas Autonomous Vehicle Fleet Tracker. As of September 24, Waymo had 1,102 autonomous vehicles registered in the state.

Waymo first launched in commercial service in Austin through a partnership with Uber in March 2025, letting riders hail its robotaxis through the Uber app. Since then, the company has expanded its robotaxi services in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

Waymo’s Texas fleet remained relatively static for most of the summer, inching up from about 600 vehicles in June to more than 700 by the end of August. Then came September, when the fleet surged, driven by an influx of new Ojai minivans, which now make up about a third of Waymo’s Texas fleet.

Expect that share to grow.

The Ojai robotaxi, equipped with Waymo’s sixth-generation self-driving system, is supposed to help Waymo reach mass scale. Its interior is built to withstand heavy use, and it comes with an upgraded rider interface and Google’s Gemini AI, which acts as an in-car assistant for riders.

Strip away that technology, though, and the Ojai is a minivan made by Zeekr, a brand owned by China’s Geely Holding Group (which also owns Volvo). The Ojai is built on Zeekr’s SEA-M platform, a shared vehicle platform designed for uses like robotaxis and delivery vans. The base Zeekr vehicles are shipped to the U.S. without any Chinese connected-car technology on board. Once they arrive, the vehicles are sent to Waymo’s Arizona factory, where they are outfitted with Waymo’s self-driving system.

The Ojai is supposed to drive down costs and ultimately help Waymo reach profitability. For now, though, tariffs are cutting any savings. Under current U.S. trade policy, vehicles built in China face steep import tariffs, raising Waymo’s costs for every Ojai it brings into the country.

Waymo appears willing to absorb that cost. New York-based research firm MoffettNathanson, which tracks Ojai imports using detailed shipping records, said in its September report that Waymo is on track to bring 5,100 of the vehicles into the U.S. by the end of the year.

Where will all those Ojai vehicles go? Texas is certainly on the list. But Florida, where Waymo operates in three cities, and newer markets like Las Vegas will likely see an influx as well.

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If Meta Platforms wants to raise money by selling equity, now is the time. Meta shares have gone on an incredible run lately, jumping 27% since Sept. 8, when the company released its Muse personal AI agent. Meta stock is now up 18% so far this year, a bigger gain than that for Alphabet, Amazon or Microsoft—quite the turnaround for a company that not too long ago was in Wall Street’s doghouse for its seemingly out-of-control AI spending.

It’s no secret why investors have fallen back in love with Meta—the company has done a good job of marketing Muse, prompting lots of glowing reviews and headlines about app downloads. Wednesday’s Connect conference, where Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled new virtual reality and AI hardware—including a device called Charm designed around Muse—appears to have reinforced the positive sentiment. But let’s not overinterpret the current state of play. In AI, no one stays on top for very long.

Remember how OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT put Google on the back foot, sparking lots of chest-thumping about the bleak future for the tech giant—until Google’s Gemini eventually caught up? Starting around November of last year, Gemini was the hot new model. But Google’s moment in the AI sun didn’t last. With Gemini appearing to lag behind, some now say Google isn’t even in the frontier AI race!

Meta has ridden the same roller coaster. Back in late 2023, when Meta released its Llama 2 model, it got such a positive reception that some saw it as taking market share from OpenAI’s GPT models. Reaction to Llama 3 in early 2024 was also upbeat. But Meta’s reputation fell into the toilet in 2025 after the company ran into problems with Llama 4.

The current burst of enthusiasm for Meta is a bit nuts. A headline on Bloomberg Opinion on Thursday suggested that the new Charm device “could be Meta’s iPod moment.” Huh? The iPod was a revolutionary device for listening to music, filling a need everyone had. The Charm offers another way for people to interact with an agent, in addition to their phone and Meta’s AI glasses. Who needs a separate device just to talk to Muse? Chances are Charm will quickly be nicknamed Charmless.

Whether Muse’s popularity is enduring is also a big question. We reported earlier this week that more than 500,000 people had tried out Muse a week after launch, which is an encouraging number. But how many of those will still be using it in a month or six months’ time? We have good reason to be skeptical about Muse’s prospects over the long term, given the widespread antipathy consumers are expressing toward AI.

And even assuming Muse remains popular, will it make or lose money for Meta? Don’t forget the agent is free to use within certain limits. A report by Rosenblatt Securities on Thursday suggested that for Muse to be profitable, either computing costs would need “to drop substantially” or an average user would have to spend more than $1,000 a month buying stuff through Muse, “well above current e-commerce averages or spending on Amazon.” (Meta plans to take a cut of transactions done through Muse).

All that means Meta’s current stock rally won’t last. If Zuckerberg is smart, he’ll get Meta to sell a few billion dollars’ worth of stock, raising much-needed cash for its costly AI expansion.