Goldman analysts, led by Eric Sheridan, updated clients this week on the latest developments in the North American autonomous vehicle rideshare market. They point out that the AV rideshare market continues to expand as Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Zoox roll out AV operations nationwide.
Readers will notice that the commercial AV deployments this year, including Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Zoox (Tesla in Texas), are full steam ahead.
Key AV deployment announcements for Uber, Lyft, and Waymo in 4Q25
Key AV deployment announcements for Uber, Lyft, and Waymo YTD 2026
One of the most fascinating charts Sheridan produced for clients shows the miles between accidents for Waymo and Tesla.
Here’s more on the safety data:
Based on available crash data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) from July 2025 through mid-January 2026, and disclosures from Waymo (for all US cities it’s operating in commercially) and Tesla (for Austin) around trips/miles driven by their respective robotaxi services, we estimate that Tesla has an accident (regardless of fault) every 45K-60K miles, while Waymo has an accident (regardless of fault) every 60K-110K miles. We note that these datapoints reflect driverless miles (including those with a safety observer/monitor for Tesla) and do not include manually operated vehicles and accidents in cities without public rides being offered. We show estimated monthly miles between accidents for both companies in Exhibit 1. Note that Tesla’s miles between accidents were ~1.5K miles in July and Tesla did not have any reported accidents in August. Further, note that January data only captures known/reported accidents through January 15th and further accidents are typically reported in the following month’s data (i.e., February data).
Note that because Tesla’s fleet in Austin is a mix of vehicles, both with and without a safety monitor, and because there are differences in where the rides are occurring (with Waymo operating commercially in more cities), the data may not be directly comparable. In addition, reports are filed with NHTSA even for minor issues that would be unlikely to be reported by a human (e.g. driving over a curb), and not all accidents are the fault of the AV.
Goldman has told clients that the AV rideshare buildout is still in its early stages and is set to accelerate from here.
In January, Elon Musk told BlackRock CEO Larry Fink at Davos that Tesla expects to operate a “widespread” robotaxi network by the end of this year.
It is only a matter of time before taxi drivers and human Uber drivers begin to revolt against AVs gaining deeper penetration in the rideshare market. That shift should become increasingly visible over the next several years, with the impact likely to be far more noticeable by 2028 and beyond.
The full Goldman note can be viewed (here) and is available to pro subs.
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