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Waymo (Alphabet)

Products: automation-operator. Risk band: Elevated   RobotRisk index 24.6/100 (incidents/exposure, time-weighted) · 79th percentile of 62 other companies.

Analyst brief

Waymo's record spans four rows from 2023 to 2026, covering a mix of failure types: a vehicle-to-vehicle disruption, a fatal-to-animal collision, a multi-vehicle crash that prompted a recall, and a January 2026 incident in which a robotaxi struck a child near a school. Severity spans the full range from 1 to 3, with the two most severe entries — the multi-car crash and the child-strike incident — both involving physical collision outcomes. The index of 24.8 and 79th percentile place Waymo in the elevated band, reflecting a multi-year, recurring pattern rather than an isolated event. The record is predominantly press-driven, with the 2023 crash entry noting a resulting recall action; the trajectory shows continued incident generation up to the most recent reporting period.

Entries by year and severity

012023 S3: 11232024 S1: 11242025 S1: 11252026 S3: 1126
S1S2S3S4S5

By incident type

By severity

RobotRisk index vs other alternatives

Comparisons over time

RobotRisk index over time

Yearly entries vs category average

malfunction over time vs category

injury over time vs category

disruption over time vs category

Incident log (4 unique incidents)

SevDateTypeLocationIncidentSource
S301/23
2026
injury Santa Monica, CA, USAWaymo robotaxi strikes child near Santa Monica school Reuters
S110/27
2025
malfunction San Francisco, CA, USAWaymo robotaxi strikes and kills a cat named KitKat in San Francisco Golem.de
S108/14
2024
disruption San Francisco, CA, USAWaymo robotaxis honk at each other overnight in SF lot The New York Times
S312/11
2023
malfunction Phoenix, AZ, USATwo Waymo robotaxis crash into the same truck within minutes, prompting recall STERN.de

Alternatives in other

FordMBTABaiduPalermo's PizzaZoox (Amazon)General Atomics / U.S. Air ForceJohnson & Johnson (Abiomed)Stellantis
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