Truly driverless cars limited to a modest number of cities in 2025
“Truly driverless cars, in which no human is required to attend to traffic, will continue to see usage limited to a modest number of cities, mainly in the West, mainly in good weather.”
How we judge it
Our interpretation: at end-2025, fully driverless public robotaxi service operates in no more than ~a dozen metro areas worldwide.
Resolution criteria are our interpretation of the claim, written before grading. Methodology
- Said
- Resolve by
- Overdue by 282 days
- Verdict
- Open
- Stated probability
- None stated
- Specificity
- 2 of 3 (dated, some interpretation)
Evidence & grader’s note
- Waymo: ~1,500 vehicles across four US metros (May 2025)
- CNBC: Uber and Waymo robotaxi service opens in Atlanta (Jun 24, 2025)
- TechCrunch: Zoox opens Las Vegas robotaxi service to the public (Sep 10, 2025)
- Baidu Q3 2025 results: Apollo Go fully driverless in all mainland cities it serves (Nov 2025)
- Baidu Q4 2025 results: 3.4 million fully driverless rides in Q4 2025
- Pony.ai: fully driverless commercial service in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (Nov 6, 2025)
Verdict pending editor decision. By late 2025, fully driverless public robotaxi service ran in at least 6 US metro areas (Waymo: Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta; Zoox: Las Vegas) and at least 9 cities in mainland China (Baidu Apollo Go: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Chongqing, Haikou, Sanya and others; Pony.ai adds Guangzhou). That is more than the ~12 metro areas in our criteria, and most of these cities are outside the West.
