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Waymo may be reshaping the economics for LA Uber and Lyft drivers. A new report looks at how
Waymo, which is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, began offering rides in Los Angeles in 2024.
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Topline:
The Los Angeles metro area has the second-most autonomous vehicles on the roads after the Bay Area. New data analysis by Gridwise shows that ride-hailing drivers have been working and getting paid less overall compared to before Waymos hit the L.A. market.
The numbers: Drivers’ total work hours fell in L.A. by 17.8%, and quarterly pay dropped 14.7% when comparing the second quarter of 2024 (before Waymo’s public release) to the same quarter in 2026. However, drivers’ pay per trip and per hour rose on average. Meanwhile, in cities without autonomous vehicles, both work hours and drivers’ quarterly pay increased, according to Gridwise.
About the data: Gridwise tracks earnings and mileage from Uber and Lyft drivers and other gig workers. The company says it encrypts and anonymizes the data before analyzing it. Brandon Sellers, Gridwise’s vice president of marketing, who helped to compile the analysis, said that the company also saw an increase in the number of drivers during the time frame studied.
Why it matters: About 900 Waymos are currently on L.A.’s roads, and direct competitors will soon hit the market. Uber is planning to add autonomous vehicles to its fleet via partnerships with other companies, including Amazon’s Zoox, within the next year. “I think [the results in California] could be telling for what you're going to see in other markets as they start to roll out autonomous vehicles,” Sellers said.
Concerns for drivers moving forward: Sellers said many human drivers are concerned about safety and about what’s going to happen when millions of autonomous vehicles roll out. “I do think it is really incumbent on certainly a lot of the platforms and the different ecosystem players to help these drivers understand, ‘Hey, what is next for me?’” Sellers explained.
Overall competition: A survey from USC researchers this year found that there’s been a small drop in people using ride-hailing apps with human drivers, though they couldn’t attribute this directly to the use of Waymo. “ It does appear that the ride-share companies are trying to … compete from a pricing standpoint,” said Sellers. “I'd argue that they're also trying to compete from a quality standpoint in terms of getting higher quality drivers out on the road.”
To read the full report: See here.
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