10 Surprising Facts About Driverless Cars

Self-driving cars are often talked about in extremes, either as a technology that’s already taken over the road or one that never quite worked. 

The truth is more complicated — and more interesting. Driverless vehicles are already operating at scale in some cities, logging miles, giving rides, and producing real data about safety, cost, and reliability… even as progress remains uneven and widely misunderstood.

Below are 10 surprising facts about today’s driverless vehicles.

1. Some robotaxi services are already handling hundreds of thousands of paid rides each week.

In US cities like Phoenix, San Francisco, and Austin, driverless ride-hailing has moved well beyond test users. Collectively, robotaxi services are now giving around 450,000 paid rides per week, a sign that these cars are being used for routine trips, not just demos or novelty rides, in markets where they’re fully approved.

2. More than 100 million miles have already been driven without a human behind the wheel.

Waymo has logged over 100 million fully autonomous miles on public roads, a scale few self-driving programs have reached outside controlled testing. Unlike lab testing or private tracks, these miles come from daily driving conditions, capturing everything from congestion and construction to unpredictable road behavior.

3. China’s robotaxi deployments have reached millions of completed trips.

Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi service has completed more than 11 million rides since launch, with growth coming from expanded city operations and rising trip volumes. Apollo Go now operates in around 15 cities and has crossed seven figures in cumulative ride counts as of early- to mid-2025. 

This massive scale shows how China’s more centralized regulatory approach has enabled faster robotaxi expansion than in the US, where approvals remain city by city.

4. Safety data shows lower injury crash rates, but not zero risk.

According to Waymo’s safety research, its fully driverless cars were involved in around 80% fewer injury-reported crashes than human drivers across 56.7 million miles of real-world driving. The largest gains showed up at intersections, where injury crashes were reduced by more than 90%, one of the most dangerous scenarios for human drivers. 

Waymo notes that crashes still occur, particularly in complex or secondary incidents, reinforcing that autonomy reduces risk but doesn’t eliminate it. 

5. Not every self-driving program has survived public deployment.

Several high-profile autonomous vehicle efforts have stalled or shut down after reaching real-world testing. 

General Motors pulled the plug on Cruise’s robotaxi business after safety incidents and mounting losses, Apple canceled its long-running self-driving car project after years of delays, and startups like Ghost Autonomy shut down entirely after struggling to turn advanced autonomy into a viable business.

6. Waymo works on the street, but the payoff is still years away.

While Waymo operates commercial robotaxi services, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has said the business is not expected to “meaningfully” contribute to Alphabet’s financials until 2027. In other words, the cars are already on the road, but the business case is still playing out.

7. Autonomous vehicle crash reports are rising as more cars hit the road.

As deployments scale, so does the raw number of reported incidents. In May 2025 alone, 110 self-driving car crashes were logged, up from single-digit monthly totals just a few years earlier. Much of the increase comes from a larger number of vehicles on the road, though it also means more autonomous incidents are now visible to regulators and the public.

8. Self-driving features could become a massive new revenue stream for carmakers.

McKinsey estimates that advanced driver-assistance and self-driving features could bring in $300 billion to $400 billion in revenue by 2035. That money isn’t expected to come only from robotaxis, but from everyday drivers paying for hands-free driving features, upgrades, and subscriptions in their own cars. 

In short, the biggest payoff for self-driving tech may show up quietly on dealership lots long before fully driverless cars become common.

9. Electric self-driving cars still beat gas cars on emissions.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says electric vehicles typically have a smaller carbon footprint than gasoline cars, even after accounting for the electricity used to charge them. That’s because EVs are far more energy-efficient, converting roughly 87% to 91% of stored energy into motion, compared with just 16% to 25% for gasoline vehicles. 

While emissions depend on how local electricity is generated, the EPA notes that as more renewables come online, the climate advantage of electric vehicles, including electric robotaxis, only grows.

10. Public trust in self-driving cars is rising — slowly.

AAA’s 2025 survey shows that 13% of US drivers now say they would trust riding in a self-driving vehicle, up from 9% the year before. While that’s progress, it comes with a caveat: six in ten drivers still say they’re afraid to ride in one. For now, most people are still more comfortable behind the wheel than in the back seat.

A new partnership between Kodiak AI and Bosch focuses on taking autonomous trucking from prototypes to scaled production.

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