The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has launched a shiny new website tracking autonomous vehicle registrations, and the data reveals a landscape that looks less like a competitive race and more like Waymo showing up to a go-kart party in a Formula 1 car.
According to the state's automated vehicle tracker tool - created to comply with a law that went into effect May 28 requiring AV companies to register and share fleet size and safety info - Alphabet-owned Waymo has registered 577 autonomous vehicles in Texas. That puts it comfortably ahead of Avride (317), Nuro (47), and, notably, Tesla, which has only 42 registered vehicles despite having launched a robotaxi service in Austin last summer and claiming expansion to Dallas and Houston. Other registered fleets include Volkswagen subsidiary MOIA with 12 electric autonomous microbuses.
Now, fleet size alone doesn't tell the whole story. Nuro and Zoox aren't operating commercially, and the numbers don't reflect active usage - Waymo itself paused operations in some Texas cities earlier this month because its vehicles apparently struggle with the concept of floods. But the gap between Waymo and rival Tesla is hard to spin as anything but a chasm. Tesla has been talking up its robotaxi ambitions while registering fewer vehicles than some companies that are basically still in beta.
The tool also tracks self-driving trucks: Aurora has 91, Gatik AI has 64, Kodiak AI has 33, and Waabi has 13. So if you're looking for a leaderboard, the message from Texas is clear: Waymo brought a fleet, and everyone else brought a hope and a prayer.