How Robotaxis Are Eating Into Uber and Lyft's Market: Waymo's Impact in Numbers

In major U.S. cities, robotaxi service Waymo is having a noticeable but largely invisible effect on the driver labor market, according to Gad Allon, a Wharton School professor and researcher of the gig economy - a form of work built on independent, short-term jobs. He argues the impact isn't showing up as a wave of mass layoffs, but rather as shifts in how often drivers get matched with rides and how long they wait between them.

According to market research firm Yipit, Waymo accounted for 15% of total ride revenue in San Francisco and Los Angeles in June, and 16% in Phoenix - slightly down from January's figures of 16%, 17% and 19% respectively, though the share held steady around the fifteen-percent mark across all three markets throughout the year. Yipit calculated these figures from email receipts belonging to roughly 1.5 million active U.S. consumers, covering taxi trips that both started and ended within Waymo's service areas.

Allon says a 15% share amounts to a "serious blow" to the labor market, but one that plays out not through mass layoffs but through drivers cutting their hours and gradually drifting away from the platform. "The adjustment happens through hours and through exit, not through job cuts," he says. According to data from Gridwise, drivers' hourly earnings fell last year in Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco - all markets where Waymo operates - even as the national average rose by 1%.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged in a June interview with Fast Company that the company is signing up fewer drivers in some cities where autonomous vehicles operate. Lyft CEO David Risher, by contrast, argues that even while competing with Waymo, growing demand is expanding the overall market - the company's ride volume in its San Francisco autonomous-vehicle zone grew roughly 20% over the year.

Katie Wells, a senior researcher at the AI Now Institute, says drivers' status as independent contractors makes it hard to measure the impact of robotaxis precisely - the effect doesn't show up in official unemployment statistics but in metrics like ride-matching rates and wait times. Based on five years of observation, she notes that the mere prospect of automation has also dampened drivers' willingness to fight for better working conditions, since many have simply come to accept that they'll lose their jobs anyway.