Waymo to expand to Miami, aims to launch robotaxi service there in 2026
A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
Waymo is setting its sights on its next location: the Sunshine State.
The Alphabet-owned company announced Thursday that it will be hitting the roads in Miami. Waymo said it will first begin cruising through the Florida city with human safety drivers in 2025 before opening doors to riders for its robotaxi service through its Waymo One app in 2026.
The expansion into Miami is indicative of Waymo’s growing confidence in operating its self-driving vehicles in harsher weather conditions in large metropolitan areas in the U.S.
Waymo first tested in Miami in 2019, which the company said helped improve the ability of its self-driving vehicles to navigate in wet and rainy conditions.
“We deepened our learning and understanding of the Waymo Driver’s performance in adverse weather conditions,” a company spokesperson said.
Waymo will use what it learned when it returns to the city with its all-electric Jaguar I-PACEs next year.
The company said its initial territory in Florida will include some parts of Miami’s larger metropolitan area, which has a population of more than 6 million people.
Waymo has been rapidly expanding its operations over the last year thanks to additional funding.
In November, the company announced it was removing its waitlist of about 300,000 people in Los Angeles, so anyone would be able to use Waymo One to hail a self-driving robotaxi throughout the nearly 80 square miles of Los Angeles County. The company’s ride-hailing service also operates citywide in Phoenix and San Francisco.
And in September, Waymo announced a partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta. Through that deal, Uber riders will be able to access Waymo’s robotaxis through the Uber app starting in early 2025, and Uber will be responsible for fleet management and operations of the Waymo vehicles, including maintenance and infrastructure, such as vehicle charging, cleaning and repairs.
Additionally, Waymo on Thursday announced that it will partner with mobility company Moove to manage its fleet operations, facilities and charging infrastructure in both Miami and Phoenix. Moove will begin managing Waymo’s Phoenix fleet in early 2025, a Waymo spokesperson said.
Waymo closed a $5.6 billion funding round in October to expand its robotaxi service across the U.S. The autonomous vehicle venture’s parent company, Alphabet, which also owns Google, led the funding round alongside earlier backers, including Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.
The robotaxi company said it now sees more than 150,000 paid rides per week via the Waymo One app across San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
Waymo is the only autonomous vehicle developer that currently operates a commercial robotaxi service in several major metro areas across the U.S., but competitors are looming.
GM-owned Cruise is working on bringing its autonomous vehicles back into use on public roads after discontinuing its services following an accident where one of its self-driving cars injured a pedestrian in San Francisco.
Tesla, meanwhile, showed off design concepts for a self-driving Cybercab and Robovan at an event in October. However, Tesla still classifies the Autopilot and Full Self-Driving software in its vehicles as “partially automated driving systems,” which require a human to be ready to steer or brake at all times. In an October earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will launch a self-driving ride-hailing service in California and Texas as early as 2025.
SoftBank-funded Wayve is testing its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, and Amazon-owned Zoox is also testing its self-driving cars, which do not feature steering wheels, in several U.S. cities.
WATCH: Waymo could benefit big from eased self-driving rules
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla’s post-election pop has almost disappeared.
Shares of the electric vehicle maker plunged by more than 9% on Tuesday, pushing the company’s market cap below $1 trillion and to its lowest since Nov. 7, which was two days after President Donald Trump’s election victory.
The stock has plummeted 25% to start the year, while the Nasdaq is down just 1.3%, and has slid 35% from its record close on Dec. 16. CEO Elon Musk has lost more than $100 billion in net worth over that stretch, though he’s still the world’s richest person, with a fortune valued at about $380 billion.
The latest slide followed a report from Reuters on Monday that Tesla’s long-awaited upgrade to its partially automated driving systems left owners disappointed. Many users told the publication that Tesla’s “navigate on city streets” feature in China fell short of Musk’s promises for self-driving technology.
Other EV makers in China, including BYD, offer their partially automated driving systems for free or a much lower cost. Xiaomi’s popular model SU7 includes the company’s equivalent technology as a standard option for free.
The report out of China added to anxiety amongst Tesla shareholders. Some of the concern has to do with the company’s performance and some is specific to Musk, who is spending much of his time in Washington, DC., leading President Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk, along with his team in Washington, has gained unparalleled access to government computer systems and taxpayer data, and the president has enabled the billionaire to lead mass firings of workers in agencies tasked with oversight of his companies, including Tesla.
Musk’s extremist political rhetoric and activism has led opponents in various markets to organize protests, including at Tesla stores and service centers. Tesla’s stock dropped earlier this month on Trump’s announced plans for extensive tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, which came alongside a decline in Tesla vehicle registrations across Europe in January and February.
For the fourth quarter, Tesla reported earnings and sales that missed analysts’ estimates, with automotive revenue dropping 8% from a year earlier and operating income plummeting 23%. In the late January report, the company cited reduced average selling prices across its aging lineup of Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X vehicles as a major reason for the decline.
According to the California New Car Dealers Association, Tesla sales dropped 11.6% in the fourth quarter of 2024 in the state, which had been Tesla’s biggest market domestically.
Tesla shares are now about 19% above where they were trading prior to Trump’s victory. Most of what remains of the rally is due to the stock’s 15% jump the day after the election. Musk was a major backer of Trump’s presidential effort, contributing $290 million to Republican candidates and causes in 2024, most of that directed at returning Trump to the White House.
Musk and Tesla didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Super Micro Computer Inc. headquarters in San Jose, California, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro Computer shares fell as much as 10% during trading on Tuesday as the company nears a deadline to file audited financial reports or be delisted from the Nasdaq exchange.
Earlier this month, Super Micro CEO Charles Liang told investors he was “confident” that the company could file those reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Feb. 25, a deadline set by Nasdaq. The company must file its audited annual report for fiscal 2024 and the first two quarters of fiscal 2025.
If Super Micro fails to file the reports, its stock could be delisted from Nasdaq. It could also ask for another extension of up to 180 days.
Super Micro representatives did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Last fall, Super Micro shares slumped in August after the company delayed releasing its annual report for the year ending in June. Ernst & Young, the company’s auditor, quit citing governance issues in October. Super Micro named BDO as its new auditor in November. The company has also been targeted by an activist short seller, Hindenburg Research, which alleged accounting fraud.
The uncertainty has led to a roller coaster for the stock. It plunged last year to a low of about $18 per share in November after soaring more than 14-fold from the end of 2022 to its peak in March last year. So far in 2025, Super Micro’s stock price has risen more than 55%.
Throughout this saga, Super Micro has risen to a higher level of prominence as its revenue has surged as a result of the boom in artificial intelligence. The biggest driver of Super Micro’s growth is that it sells systems based around Nvidia graphics processing units, or GPUs, needed to build server clusters for AI. Elon Musk’s xAI, for example, buys Super Micro systems.
According to its unaudited financials, Super Micro sales more than doubled in its fiscal 2024 to $14.94 billion. Analysts expect about $5.37 billion in revenue for the current quarter, which would be a nearly 40% increase year over year.
The SEC’s system for accepting filings can receive documents as late as 10 p.m. ET, and depending on how late the filing is made, it can become public the next morning.
— CNBC’s Samantha Subin and Kristina Partsinevelos contributed to this report.
Perplexity AI logo is seen in this illustration taken January 4, 2024.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Perplexity AI, the developer of a popular artificial intelligence search engine, is close to raising a $50 million venture fund focused on early-stage AI startups, CNBC has learned.
The company will be an anchor investor in the fund, but most of the capital is coming from outside limited partners, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the information is confidential.
The two general partners of the fund are also coming from elsewhere. They are Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko, who have been running early-stage fund f7 Ventures, the person said.
Perplexity has been in the middle of the generative AI boom that began in late 2022 with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. CNBC reported in November that the company was in the final stages of raising $500 million in funding at a $9 billion valuation. Perplexity is viewed as a potential competitor to Google as more consumers turn to AI to search for information online.
Last month, Perplexity also made a bid to merge with TikTok U.S. as the social media platform faces a potential U.S. shutdown.
The company sees a potential investing advantage when it comes to startups because roughly 80,000 developers are plugged into its network, so Perplexity gets visibility into who is using its application programming interface (API) and who is most active in their consumption, the person said.
Perplexity’s founders and investors are putting money into the fund, and some of the company’s commitment is in the form of stock, the source said.
— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.
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