Robotics Special: Waymo clocks 500k paid trips a week

Welcome back, Superhuman. Robotaxis are scaling faster than anyone predicted, as Waymo announced that it’s now logging over 500,000 paid rides a week, more than 10x its volume from just two years ago. However, the road ahead for robotaxis is not exactly smooth sailing. In Wuhan, Baidu’s Apollo Go fleet suffered a system-wide failure, triggering a traffic disruption we’ve never seen before.

WHAT’S NEXT

The most important news and breakthroughs in robotics this week

1. Waymo scratches a major milestone off its list: In less than two years, Waymo has grown its weekly paid trips by 10x from 50k rides in 2024 to 500k today. The company added seven Sun Belt markets in just the past year, stretching from Austin to Orlando, while keeping its fleet steady at around 3,000 vehicles. With its 6th-gen self-driving system already live in early development, Waymo's rivals have some serious catching up to do. Here’s a chart documenting the company’s surprising growth trajectory.

2. Physical Intelligence eyes $1B raise as robotics interest grows: The company is reportedly in talks to raise $1B at an $11B valuation, up from $5.6B just four months ago. The two-year-old startup is building AI models that teach robots to fold clothes, make coffee, and assemble boxes on command. If successful, the raise could potentially bring Physical Intelligence’s total valuation closer to rivals Skild AI and Figure AI, valued at $14B and $39B, respectively.

3. A 'system failure' left 100 Baidu robotaxis stranded in Wuhan: Over 100 Apollo Go robotaxis simultaneously froze in the middle of busy roads in Wuhan after a 'system failure' hit Baidu's robotaxi fleet. Some passengers were stuck inside for up to two hours before police assisted with the exit. The wild incident has reignited debates about the safety and accountability of autonomous vehicles. See the incident unfold here.

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ROBOTS IN ACTION

How robots are transforming the world around us

🔥 Blaze Buddy: Dubai has deployed quadruped robots to tackle blazes in high-rises, tunnels, and chemical sites where temperatures can exceed 500°C. The robots, which blast up to 2,400 liters of water per minute, are already active in live incidents, marking one of the most compelling real-world deployments of robotics in public safety yet. You see them in action here.

🗺️ City Sidekick: Students at Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences have transformed Pepper, a decade-old, 4-foot humanoid robot, into a tourism assistant that reads facial expressions, responds to gestures, and displays QR codes for local attractions. Powered by Google's Gemini, Pepper is programmed as a city expert, giving visitors directions, cruise terminal check-in help, and preplanned city routes.

🚀 Lending a Hand: A Chinese commercial satellite has successfully trialed a flexible robotic arm in orbit, completing four key tasks: autonomous refueling simulations, remote ground-controlled operation, vision-guided docking, and force-sensitive drawing of shapes on a board. The goal is a future where broken or fuel-depleted satellites can be repaired and refueled in orbit without having to come home.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Everything else you need to know this week

Here are the biggest developments in the robotics space that you should know about:

• UBTech Robotics is reportedly offering up to $18M a year for a chief AI scientist — a bold bet on an industry where deployment is still early-stage.

• FedEx is betting on partnerships over in-house tech for warehouse automation, teaming up with Berkshire Grey to deploy package-handling robots.

• AGIBOT has built its 10,000th humanoid robot, marking a major leap from prototypes to mass-scale deployment in just months.

• Pony.ai has unveiled plans to deploy 3k robotaxis across 20+ cities this year, as surging revenue signals accelerating commercialization of driverless ride-hailing.

• Humanoid’s HMND-01 robot has successfully completed real-world warehouse picking tasks — a key step toward robots in industrial operations.

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ROBOT OF THE WEEK

A robot that caught our eye this week

If you've been playing referee at meal time, there's finally a smarter solution.

Cheerable just dropped the Pet Feeder Match G1, an AI-powered device that uses facial recognition to feed the right cat every time. The $179 automatic feeder identifies individual cats without collars or chips, blocking food stealing and delivering personalized portions to each animal. Built for multi-cat households managing special diets.

You can check it out here.

ROBO REELS

Watch: Disney’s Olaf robot goes viral and sparks memes with hilarious fumble at Disneyland debut

No matter how sophisticated the AI beneath the frame, robots falling over will never not be funny.

At its debut at Disneyland Paris, Disney’s much-anticipated Olaf animatronic malfunctioned mid-performance, struck a T-pose, and toppled backward in front of a stunned crowd. The clip blew up on social media, spawning a wave of memes and video edits. Despite the drama, Olaf was quickly back on his feet as if nothing had happened. Watch it here.

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Zain, Faiq, and the Superhuman AI team