Waymo-Uber Split Set for January 2028 as Weekly Rides Hit 500,000

The Waymo Uber split now has a date. Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told Bloomberg News in an interview published Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, that the Alphabet-owned robotaxi company will start offering rides in Austin and Atlanta through its own app in January 2028, ending the arrangement that has made Uber the only way to hail a Waymo in those two cities.

Key figures: Own Waymo app in Austin and Atlanta from January 2028 · Uber contract runs to May 2028 · 500,000 paid Waymo rides a week · 15 U.S. cities · about 4,000 robotaxis

What changes in Austin and Atlanta, and when

The interview confirms what Uber first disclosed in July. At the time, an Uber spokesperson told CNBC that Waymo had notified the company it intended to launch the Waymo app in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028 “alongside their existing deployment with Uber.” Uber said hundreds of Waymo vehicles would stay on its platform in both cities through at least May 2028, when the current contract ends, and that the change frees Uber to bring other autonomous-vehicle companies into those markets.

The financial terms of the Uber partnership have never been disclosed, so the dollar impact on either company is not public. What is clear is the timeline: riders in both cities get a second way to book a Waymo in about 14 months, and the exclusive tie-up ends a few months after that. Waymo first launched paid service in Austin through Uber in March 2025, according to TechCrunch.

Why Waymo wants its own app

Mawakana framed the move around the rider experience. She told Bloomberg that Waymo first partnered with Uber because the ride-hailing company offered scale, but that hailing through Uber has been “a little bit of a crapshoot,” as TechCrunch summarized, because riders cannot be sure whether a robotaxi or a human driver will show up.

“It’s important for us to have that relationship with the rider. We’ve gotten that feedback from the riders in those markets,” Mawakana said. She also said, according to a TipRanks summary of the interview, that “price is not the first priority” and that Waymo is “not trying to have this race to the bottom.”

Uber gave Bloomberg its own account. The company said it had asked about adding an option in its app to book a robotaxi directly, and that Waymo declined, TechCrunch reported.

By the numbers: Waymo’s growth since the Uber deal

Waymo needs Uber’s reach much less than it did when the partnership began. The company reported 150,000 paid rides a week in October 2024 and 250,000 in April 2025. In February 2026 it said it was giving more than 400,000 rides a week, and by late September TechCrunch put the average at 500,000 paid rides a week across 15 U.S. cities.

• Ride growth: 500,000 weekly rides is about 3.3 times the October 2024 level, an increase of roughly 233% in about two years (TBR calculation from company figures).
• Annual pace: At 500,000 a week, Waymo would give about 26 million rides a year, roughly 73% more than the 15 million it reported for all of 2025 (TBR calculation; assumes the September pace holds).
• Texas weight: Waymo had 1,102 vehicles registered in Texas on Sept. 24, up from about 600 in June. That is about 28% of its roughly 4,000-vehicle fleet (TBR calculation from TechCrunch figures).
• Cost of growth: Alphabet’s Other Bets segment, which includes Waymo, lost $2.05 billion in the third quarter, up from $1.43 billion a year earlier, an increase of about 43% (TBR calculation from Alphabet figures reported by Fortune). Segment revenue rose 8% to $372 million.

Waymo has also raised outside money to pay for its expansion: a $16 billion round in February that valued it at $126 billion, and a $5 billion term loan in October, its first debt financing, Fortune reported.

What the split means for Uber and the robotaxi race

For Uber, Austin and Atlanta become open markets for its other autonomous partners once exclusivity ends, as the company told CNBC in July. Waymo, for its part, has not been exclusive everywhere: it signed a non-exclusive deal with Lyft for Nashville last year, CNBC reported.

Texas is central to both sides. Waymo has expanded to Dallas, Houston and San Antonio since its Austin launch, and about a third of its Texas fleet is now the new Zeekr-built “Ojai” minivan, according to TechCrunch. Rival Tesla has been pitching its own Cybercab robotaxi plans to investors, and regulators abroad are drafting rules for the business, including Shanghai’s proposed robotaxi and ride-hailing regulations.

For Waymo, owning the app means controlling pricing, rider support and trip data in Austin and Atlanta, as it already does in its other cities, instead of sharing the customer with a platform that also sells human-driven trips. The decision lands in a busy week for Alphabet, where Google is also facing pushback over its plan to tie school Search access to its AI tools.

What to watch

Key dates are January 2028, when the Waymo app arrives in both cities, and May 2028, when the Uber contract runs out. Before then, watch whether Uber names new robotaxi partners for Austin and Atlanta, and whether Waymo’s weekly ride count, last reported at 500,000, keeps climbing as more Ojai vans reach Texas.

Sources

• TechCrunch: Waymo confirms it will split with Uber in January 2028 (Nov. 4, 2026)
• Bloomberg: Waymo to end exclusive Uber robotaxi deal, citing rider consistency concerns (Nov. 4, 2026)
• TipRanks: Waymo confirms split with Uber (Nov. 4, 2026)
• CNBC: Uber and Waymo to end exclusivity arrangement in Atlanta and Austin (July 24, 2026)
• TechCrunch: Waymo is scaling fast: here’s what the fleet data shows (Sept. 24, 2026)
• Fortune: Alphabet’s Other Bets brought in $372 million and lost $2.05 billion (Oct. 30, 2026)
• The Verge: Waymo now does 150,000 paid trips per week (Oct. 29, 2024)
• CNBC: Waymo reports 250,000 paid robotaxi rides per week (April 24, 2025)