Waymo & Cruise Growing, But Is XPeng Going To Take The Robotaxi Lead?

Waymo and Cruise have been growing incrementally, especially in San Francisco, where they’ve been given the opportunity to operate 24/7 across the city. However, there was a potential robotaxi story outside of the US recently that caught my attention more than any other.

Let’s start with Waymo, though. After getting permission to expand in San Francisco and run day and night there, downloads of the Waymo app (and Cruise app) surged. Here’s the data:

In other words, in the 5 days following the vote, Waymo downloads grew by 67% compared to the 5 days before the vote. Cruise app downloads grew even more, by 77%. Furthermore, “Waymo recently told TechCrunch that 100,000 app users are on the waitlist for the Waymo One service in the San Francisco area.”

Since…