Waymo plans to launch driverless rides in four more U.S. markets. The company did not specify which cities. This matters to approximately zero people who trade stocks based on headlines.
Robotaxis remain a solution in search of a problem. Humans already drive cars. They do it poorly, but they do it. Waymo wants you to sit in a car with no driver while algorithms decide whether you live or die in traffic. The value proposition is unclear.
The press release mentions Waymo has a big lead in the nascent U.S. robotaxi market. A big lead in a nascent market is like being the tallest kid in preschool. Congratulations on your dominance of a sector that barely exists.
Retail traders will see this headline and think expansion equals revenue. They will not ask which four cities. They will not ask about unit economics. They will not ask why Waymo needs to expand into more markets when it already operates in San Francisco and Phoenix, two cities where people apparently enjoy being guinea pigs for liability nightmares on wheels.
The expansion accelerates, according to the summary. Acceleration is a physics term that means getting faster. In corporate speak it means we are still losing money but now in more places simultaneously.
Waymo is owned by Alphabet, which means Google is burning cash on robot cars while laying off human employees. The strategy is flawless. Fire people who need paychecks. Build cars that need lawsuits.
Four more markets means four more cities where drunk people at 2 a.m. will vomit in a car with seventeen cameras recording their failure. The footage will be stored forever in a data center powered by a coal plant in Oklahoma.
Your technical analysis should consist of one question: can I short a private subsidiary of a profitable parent company that uses robotaxis as a tax write-off? The answer is no, but you'll try anyway because you think disruption means anything other than rich people solving problems rich people invented.
Photo by Igor Shalyminov on Unsplash
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