Ars Technica reports Waymo has sharply increased lobbying as it tries to clear a path for fully autonomous taxis, intensifying a fight with Uber. In New York, Waymo's 2026 spend was described as more than half a million dollars — more than double Uber's lobbying there.
The policy fork is simple. One model lets AV companies run their own fleets. The other, which Uber has pushed in places like Washington, D.C., folds robotaxis into existing ride-hail apps — or requires a human-driver hybrid.
If Uber's hybrid wins, Waymo spent years and billions to become a vendor on someone else's marketplace. If Waymo's model wins, Uber risks being written out of the cities that matter.
This is industrial policy at city-council scale. Safety statistics will be cited. So will taxi unions, disability access, and downtown congestion. The lobbyists are there because the engineering is no longer the only bottleneck.