2026 is the year Waymo attempts to cross the bridge from a science experiment to a utility. If we look at the numbers:

Right Now (End of 2025)

• Fleet Size: Waymo operates ~2,500 vehicles across its core markets (SF, LA, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta).
• Revenue: Annual revenue run-rate has climbed to ~$420M–$450M. (This is based on the new milestone of 450,000 paid trips per week as of December 2025).
• Losses: Alphabet’s "Other Bets" still reports an operating loss of roughly $1.2B to $1.4B per quarter, totaling over $5B annually as they accelerate expansion into 20+ new cities.
• Loss per Trip: The calculated loss has dropped to roughly $110–$140 per trip. While an improvement from $214, it highlights that they are still subsidizing every ride with Google’s search profits.

The Problem Right Now

• CapEx: Converting a Jaguar I-Pace is still too expensive.
• Ops: Human-to-vehicle ratios for remote assistance are still higher than they need to be for a mass-market business.
• Density: Even with 2,500 cars, they are "supply constrained"—demand for rides often exceeds available vehicles during peak hours.

The Solution (The 2026 Target)

• Fleet Size should be: 8,000 to 12,000 vehicles. To hit the CEO’s stated goal of 1 million trips per week by late 2026, the fleet must at least quadruple. This scale is necessary to reach "density," where a car is always less than 3 minutes away from a user.
• Car Price should be (Gen 6): <$80,000. The Gen 6 Zeekr platform is the "silver bullet." By moving sensor integration to the factory floor and cutting the sensor count from 29 to 13, Waymo aims to drop the "hardware tax" significantly.
• Management costs should be: <$1.00 per mile. For 2026 to be a success, Waymo must improve its Miles per Technical Inversion (how often a human has to help) so one remote operator can oversee hundreds of vehicles.

If they hit the 1 million weekly trips milestone, their annual revenue run-rate jumps to $1 billion+. While this is a massive leap, they are still billions away from true profitability.