Waymo joins Cruise in 1M test mile club, expands driverless rides to Los Angeles
Robotaxi developer Waymo announced that this past January, it surpassed 1 million miles of autonomous driving with no human present in the vehicle. With the news, Waymo joins competitor Cruise as the latest to reach the autonomous milestone but has also publicly shared the data to back up its progress. As previously teased last year, Waymo is also now officially testing driverless rides in Los Angeles.
Waymo was launched in 2009 by Google’s parent company Alphabet, Inc. as a self-driving car project. In 2016, the Google project was officially rebranded as Waymo, derived from “a new way forward in mobility.” Since then, Waymo has tested its various self-driving vehicles in several states.
Additionally, it has been charging driverless rides for people in Chandler, Arizona, since 2019. That was followed by paid rides in San Francisco. At the time of its application to the California DMV, Waymo stated it had logged over 83,000 autonomous miles in the San Francisco area alone.
Obviously, its total for autonomous driving miles is much larger, given the company’s growing footprint in robotaxi testing. Today we learned that Waymo finally eclipsed 1 million miles on its way south to testing more driverless rides in Los Angeles, California.
Waymo is bringing driverless rides to Los Angeles
According to a blog post from Waymo today, the company recently surpassed 1 million miles on public roads without a human monitor present in the vehicle. The company points out that this distance equates to 40 trips around planet Earth or 80 years behind the wheel for the average American.
As previously mentioned, fellow robotaxi developer Cruise announced the same accomplishment last month. However, Waymo has one-upped its competitor by publicly sharing the safety performance data gathered from each and every ride. Throughout those million miles, Waymo vehicles were only involved in two crashes and 18 “minor contact events,” for a total of 20 incidents with zero reported injuries. Impressive.
Waymo also points out that over half the contact events were the result of a human driver hitting a stationary Waymo vehicle, not the other way around. Per the blog post:
Despite 24/7 driving across major U.S. cities, Waymo experienced no collisions at all of the types that are responsible for 94% of fatal collisions in NHTSA’s crash investigation database (FARS).
Every vehicle-to-vehicle event involved one or more road rule violation and/or dangerous behaviors on the part of the human drivers in the other vehicle.
Waymo states that with its million-mile milestone and the data results shared today, it is confident of its commercial progress and looks to provide even more evidence of the safety using its driverless robotaxis provides during transportation around crowded urban landscapes. Part of that expansion will now include further driverless testing in Los Angeles. Here’s a recent Tweet from Waymo Co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov:
Looking ahead, Waymo has added Los Angeles to its list of cities where pedestrians can hail driverless rides. As you can see in the footage above, it has already begun testing in the City of Angels. Last October, we reported that some Waymo vehicles could be spotted in Los Angeles, exploring how the robotaxi tech could fit into the city’s infrastructure – one that is riddled by anemic public transit and remains heavily reliant on automobiles to get around.
Testing appears to be growing in Southern California and should continue as Waymo looks to reach its next million in driverless miles. So keep an eye out for those robotaxis if you’re living in the Los Angeles area.
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With new models rolling out from General Motors, Porsche, Honda, and several others, US EV sales increased by over 10% in the first three months of 2025. Nearly 300,000 EVs were sold in the first quarter of 2025. These were the top-selling models.
New EVs drive US sales growth in Q1 2025
Electric vehicle sales showed mixed results in the first quarter. Although Tesla is the center of attention as it continues to lose market share, several new EV models made an impressive debut.
With over 30,000 EVs sold in the first quarter, more than double the number sold last year, GM surpassed Ford and Hyundai Motor, placing second behind Tesla. GM’s Chevy is now the fastest-growing EV brand in the US, with the new electric Equinox, Blazer, and Silverado arriving.
GM sold 10,329 Chevy Equinox, 6,187 Blazer, and another 2,383 Silverado EVs in Q1. Thanks to its partnership with GM, Honda had an impressive sales quarter, selling over 14,000 EVs, including its luxury Acura brand.
The Prologue SUV remained one of the top-sellers with 9,561 units sold in the first quarter, while the Acura ZDX added another 4,813.
According to Cox Automotive, Honda led EV sales growth for new entrants in Q1, followed by Acura, Jeep, and Dodge.
Jeep sold 2,595 Wagoneer S models during the quarter, its first electric SUV sold in the US. Dodge, another Stellantis-owned brand, sold 1,947 Charger EVs, or what it calls the world’s first electric muscle car.
Although Chevy’s Equinox EV made a statement in Q1, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E remained the top-selling non-Tesla with 11,607 models sold.
| Rank | EV model | Q1 2025 sales |
| 1 | Tesla Model Y | 64,051 |
| 2 | Tesla Model 3 | 52,520 |
| 3 | Ford Mustang Mach-E | 11,607 |
| 4 | Chevrolet Equinox EV | 10,329 |
| 5 | Honda Prologue | 9,561 |
| 6 | Hyundai IONIQ 5 | 8,611 |
| 7 | Volkswagen ID.4 | 7,663 |
| 8 | Ford F-150 Lightning | 7,187 |
| 9 | BMW i4 | 7,125 |
| 10 | Tesla Cybertruck | 6,406 |
After introducing the upgraded 2025 IONIQ 5 (which now has even more range and an NACS charging port), Hyundai sold 8,611 electric SUVs in Q1, an increase of 26% from last year.
Porsche had the highest EV sales volume growth after launching the electric Macan. With 3,339 units added, the Macan EV made up for Porsche Taycan sales falling 18% to just 1,019.
As Cox Automotive Analyst Stephanie Valdez Streaty noted, “The year certainly started strong, but the road ahead will be anything but smooth.”
Trump ending federal incentives and introducing new tariffs will “pose a monumental challenge for many automakers,” according to Valdez Streaty. Despite several new models arriving and significant incentives being offered (at least for now), the rest of 2025 “will likely be a volatile one for EV sales in the US.”
Ready to score some savings while they are still here? We can help you get started. You can use our links below to find deals on the top-selling EVs in your area.
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![Electric concrete pump truck can drive 30 miles, pump 65 cubic yards [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/04/putzmeister_electric-pump.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Based on a capable Volvo FM Electric 8×4 chassis, Putzmeister revealed one of the world’s largest all electric concrete pump trucks at the bauma equipment expo in Munich, Germany this week. The zero-emission concrete pumper can up to 50 km and pump approximately 50 cubic meters of concrete on a single charge.
50 km (a little over 30 miles) and 50 cubic meters (about 65 cubic yards) may not seem like impressive numbers, but consider this: a single cubic yard of concrete weighs a little over 4,000 lbs. (2 tons). A bit of simple math later, and you’ve got a quiet, vibration-free machine blasting (65 cu. yds ×4,100 lbs./yd = 266,500 lbs.) of construction material nearly 140 feet (42 meters) in the air.
That’s over 130 tons of construction material moved a really long way, and that’s (of course) without the use of diesel or gas.
“Volvo Trucks is the innovator when it comes to new technologies in combination with electric trucks. After presenting electric concrete mixers and heavy applications for mining, we are proud to show yet another world-class innovation for the construction segment here at bauma,” says Christoph Fitz, Head of Sales at Volvo Trucks in Germany. “With this electric pump truck, customers can have a zero-exhaust emission solution, low-noise operation and an efficient process thanks to the work-while-charging capacity.”
The Volvo FM Electric-based concrete pump is motivated by a pair of electric motors developing a continuous 330 kW (442 hp) of output through the company’s proprietary I-Shift gearbox. The truck’s four battery packs add up to 360 kWh of capacity, which can DC fast charge at speeds up to 250 kW or operate continuously (pumping even more material) with grid power or PU500 remote power connection.
Electrek’s Take
There will surely be a few nay-sayers who’ll try to cite the relatively short-sounding range of trucks like this, or the 100-ton Tadano mobile electric crane, but the range is typically more than enough to operate in urban environments and motivate the asset across even the largest job sites. Additionally, the ability to plug in to grid power and operate 24/7 makes all of that quieter, safer, cleaner … and moot.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Putzmeister; Volvo Trucks.
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This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes an analysis of how the Trump tariffs will affect e-bike pricing in the US, USB-C chargeable e-bikes launched by Ampler, Specialized e-bike recall, Juiced Bikes revived as a brand, kayak camping with the JackRabbit XG Pro, Walkcar’s new device that does the walking for you, and more.
The Wheel-E podcast returns every two weeks on Electrek’s YouTube channel, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the Wheel-E podcast today:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 9:00 a.m. ET (or the video after 10:00 a.m. ET):
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