The key race: empty-seat kilometers, not a longer city list
Winning a robotaxi market still means paid trips and empty-seat kilometers, not a longer city list. Waymo's Safety Impact hub still states 271.3 million rider-only miles through June 2026 in five scored metros: Phoenix 92.121 million, the San Francisco Bay Area 82.421 million, Los Angeles 67.098 million, Austin 21.064 million, and Atlanta 8.624 million. The hub's 82 percent fewer injury-causing crashes and 95 percent fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes versus its human benchmark remain Waymo's own comparisons. The 16 October Toronto post's figure of over 400 million fully autonomous kilometres is a round kilometre total below that June mile print, not a newer rider-only disclosure.
On 14 October Waymo dropped the invite code in San Antonio, San Diego, and Tampa, and opened San Antonio International Airport to every rider. On 13 October it added Nashville International Airport, with pickups and drop-offs in Terminal Garage 2 for a limited group of riders first. Those are access changes inside metros already on the map. Paid US service is still 15 metros. Toronto, announced the same week, starts as manual mapping with specialists behind the wheel, fleet support from Element Fleet Management, and first riders targeted for 2028. It is not a 16th paid city.
No weekly paid-ride total appears in those October posts or on the Safety Impact hub, so this check does not replace the weekly rate already on the sector record. Tesla still does not publish a comparable weekly trip rate in the Cybercab fleet report checked here. Baidu has not issued a later global kilometer or city total, so the August quarter print remains the latest company-wide distance disclosure on its record.
Who is ahead: trip rate versus a Cybercab count
Waymo still leads on the only large published safety-mile table. Tesla's new scale claim is a vehicle count, not a trip count. Teslarati reported that the Tesla Robotaxi account said on 10 October that more than 300 Cybercabs were serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and that AI software head Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas next without a date. The same report said a registry add took Texas-registered Cybercabs from 169 to 319, while a community tracker counted 105 Cybercabs in unsupervised Austin service that day. The serving claim, the registration count, and the sighting count are different series. None is a US total.
Purpose-built volume is still not trip volume. Zoox's current record still limits paid service to Las Vegas, and its newest entries are a software-leadership profile and a stockholder class motion, not a new market. XPeng's YOYO service is unchanged from the 8 October invite-code launch. Later XPeng items are G9L and Mona L05 prices, not trip counts. Chinese public-company fleets have not been restated since the mid-year prints.
What decides the next fare: certification dates and safety drivers
Teslarati still dates Tesla's sworn Cybercab certification answers to 30 October. Nothing in that report says paid Austin service is paused. Dallas is a stated next city without a start date, a fleet size, or a service area.
The Guardian reported on 14 October that Uber, Pony.ai, and Verne are mapping Manchester with a safety driver and no passengers, and that Transport for Greater Manchester had received no driverless-taxi application. That is a test, not a fare. On the Pony.ai record, the earlier London Gen-7 plan still has no named operator, fleet size, or public-service date. The Guardian said London's live passenger service uses Wayve cars with a safety driver. Uber's statement that it expects robotaxi trips in as many as 15 cities worldwide by the end of 2026, mainly in the US and the Middle East, is a company target, not a count of cities already charging fares.
What to watch through early 2027
Watch whether a later Waymo or Alphabet disclosure replaces the weekly rate still standing on the sector record, and whether Las Vegas moves off the gradual rollout Waymo's announcement page still dates to 14 September. Toronto's own target is 2028, and the current step is mapping with a person behind the wheel. Watch whether the 300-plus Austin serving claim and the 319 registered-Cybercab claim show up as one Texas series, whether Dallas rides start, and whether the 30 October certification date is met.
Watch whether Manchester carries passengers, whether the London Gen-7 test actually starts, and whether YOYO drops its invite code and prints trips. Opening more of an existing Waymo city, or naming a test city, does not by itself put more paid kilometers on the board.
