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in san francisco, People who want to get from point A to point B have a few fairly unique options. there Uber and Lyftare headquartered in the region and are also available worldwide. Then there Waymoa subsidiary of Alphabet, is offering driverless rides in a few U.S. cities (it will be available in more places this year). Then, starting last fall, Bay Area residents also gained access to ride-hailing service offered by electric car maker Tesla, which operates “Robot taxi” in Texas But as a more traditional service, With drivers behind the wheelin California.
For months, new and futuristic “robot taxi” services have been emerging It felt like a novelty. Tourists gawked and boarded for fun rides, but Waymo tended to be slower and more expensive than human-piloted alternatives.
now New data and analysis From taxi fare aggregator Obi found that new service prices and wait times have become more competitive in the Gulf region. It could be a sign that the technology is close to fulfilling its promise of providing cheaper, more widely available rides, which could eventually put human drivers out of business.
The last time Obi checked ride-hailing prices last spring, he found that Waymo ride prices were 30 to 40 percent higher than Uber and Lyft ride prices. But as of November and December 2025, Waymo was starting to catch up: Its rides were 13% more expensive than Uber, and 27% more expensive than Lyft. The analysis found that Waymo is particularly competitive outside of peak hours.
The price gap between human-led and robot-led services gets smaller as trip duration increases — which is a relief, because Waymos I just started driving on some highways in November. Waymo riders pay $3.67 per kilometer for rides between 4.3 and 9.3 kilometers (2.6 to 5.8 miles), compared to $3.60 for Uber and $3.14 for Lyft.
Perhaps more notable than the tightening price war are Waymo’s more competitive wait times. Last spring, an Obi analysis showed that the self-driving car service had consistently longer wait times than Uber and Lyft. Now, Waymo’s expected arrival times are consistently shorter than Uber’s and closer to Lyft’s. (The notable exception is that Waymo’s wait times — and prices — go up between 4 and 6 p.m.) “Consumers don’t like to wait. It’s an on-demand service for a reason,” says Ashwini Anburajan, CEO of Obi. “Seeing wait times go down creates a more level playing field between the three.”
Then there’s Tesla’s service, which is out of the ordinary. Tesla’s Bay Area ride-hailing operation operates with fewer than 200 vehicles across a roughly 400-square-mile service area, and while the company said its cars use its self-driving (supervised) driver assistance feature, the cars do not drive autonomously.