A new Road to Autonomy Index from Autnmy AI ranks robotaxi programs and other autonomous categories using public data refreshed every 12 hours—showing China’s Baidu Apollo Go just ahead of Waymo in the robotaxi race.
Juneteenth has a way of slowing people down to think about what progress really means—what’s measured, what’s promised, and what actually gets delivered. In that spirit, a new robotaxi scorecard is trying to make the self-driving debate a little less about hype and a lot more about receipts.
Advisory and research startup Autnmy AI says it has built a generative AI platform to create a benchmarking system that evaluates and ranks autonomous vehicle companies. The goal is straightforward: answer who’s winning the self-driving car race in real time, using data the public can check.
This week, Autnmy AI released its Road to Autonomy Index. The system searches relevant global public databases including federal and state reports, SEC documents, public exchanges, and other data. It weighs a company’s operations. scale. revenue. commercial partnerships. manufacturing. and safety record based on what it finds. and it provides an update every 12 hours.
The index splits the story into four categories: robotaxis, autonomous driving licensing companies, autonomous trucks, and delivery bots.
Autnmy AI co-founder Rob Grant emphasized that the platform isn’t scraping everything it can find off the internet. “We agreed early on, we don’t scrape information,” Grant said. “If it’s publicly available or if it’s available under a Creative Commons license, we will use that information. We do have some license data that we pay folks for, and under that agreement too.”.
The scorecard’s global approach also produced an early takeaway that immediately stood out to Grant—China’s stronger ranking across multiple categories. In the initial results, the robotaxi leader as of Friday was not Waymo. It was China’s Baidu Apollo Go program—just barely. Waymo sat in the secondary position, followed by Chinese companies Pony.ai and WeRide. Tesla landed in the fifth position.
The index’s choice of categories matters because it pushes the spotlight beyond driving demos and into the messy middle: partnerships, manufacturing, and the safety record companies can document.
That pressure to “show the work” is playing out in the real world too. A Texas automated vehicle tracker tool launched in May has been something to watch. and the fleet numbers underscore how fast these efforts are moving even when commercial use is not uniform. In Texas, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox are building fleets.
But the state-by-state picture comes with limits. Zoox, for instance, cannot operate commercially until it receives an exemption from the federal government. Zoox can give rides in its custom-built robotaxi, but it currently cannot charge customers.
As of May 28, Waymo had 577 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas. It now has 620—about a 7.5% increase in less than a month. Tesla has 69 registered autonomous vehicles, a 64% increase from the 42 it had on May 28. Zoox rose from 35 registered autonomous vehicles last month to 43.
Other players are holding steady: Avride has 317, Nuro has 47, and Volkswagen subsidiary MOIA has 12.
The numbers and rankings may look like separate stories—one built from public documents refreshed every 12 hours. the other updated as fleets register in Texas. Put together. they suggest how the debate about autonomy is shifting toward something more measurable: not just what companies claim. but what can be counted. tracked. and updated.
In the background, the ecosystem kept moving. Cargofy. a logistics company that uses AI to automate freight operations. raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by u.ventures. Toloka. and Movens Capital. with Des Traynor. co-founder of Intercom. and several angel investors also participating. Carro, the Singapore-based online car marketplace, acquired Australian used-car platform CarPlace, with terms not disclosed. Gatik announced a multi-year partnership with PepsiCo; the companies wouldn’t share the value. but Gatik already operates driverless trucks for PepsiCo across Arkansas. Arizona. and Texas. QuantumScape announced a joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co. to accelerate solid-state battery development and associated manufacturing processes. Automaker Stellantis, self-driving startup Wayve, and ride-hailing giant Uber struck a deal to jointly develop and deploy driverless robotaxis.
XDOF, a startup focused on robot training data, raised $70 million from Thrive Capital, Spark Capital, a16z, Lux, and WndrCo.
Even with scorecards and registration dashboards, incidents keep reminding everyone that autonomy is still a system under stress. A video posted on Reddit showed a driver running a stop sign and hitting an autonomous vehicle in Dallas. TechCrunch confirmed it was an Avride robotaxi, hailed via the Uber app. An Avride spokesperson said no injuries were reported and that data from the incident is being reviewed “to continuously refine our technology and processes. as part of our standard procedures.” Asked about the reaction of the self-driving system and the human safety operator. Avride said. “Our safety review is currently ongoing. so we cannot provide more precise details at this time.”.
Across the industry, small operational details and regulatory friction continue to shape what “autonomous” actually means day-to-day. Tesla owners in China discovered a workaround to the vehicle’s distracted driving monitor: tiny plastic heads. Over on X. folks spotted a Tesla with an authorized limousine permit sticker for San Francisco County and the San Francisco International Airport. A spokesperson for SFO told TechCrunch that “Tesla has been issued a limousine permit to operate at SFO. This
is for traditional limousine operations, meaning the vehicles have a human driver. Tesla has not been issued a permit for any autonomous operations at SFO.” Mobileye. which has pitched itself as an autonomous vehicle technology supplier. plans to launch a robotaxi service in an unnamed U.S. city in 2027. Uber plans to launch a premium robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027, making it the second U.S. market under its partnership with EV maker Lucid and
autonomous vehicle startup Nuro.
And Waymo’s fleet update comes with its own warning label: Waymo recalled its fleet of nearly 4. 000 robotaxis to stop them from driving into highway construction zones. Waymo took its robotaxis off the freeways weeks ago and has identified at least 13 instances of its robotaxis driving into highway sections that were closed for construction. The software fix is “under development,” which means the issue is not resolved.
For now. Autnmy AI’s Road to Autonomy Index adds a new scoreboard to the race—one built to refresh every 12 hours and to rank categories using global public records. In the robotaxi race, that scoreboard places China’s Baidu Apollo Go just ahead of Waymo. The question is whether that measurable momentum matches what riders and regulators will allow next.
Autnmy AI Road to Autonomy Index robotaxi Waymo Baidu Apollo Go Pony.ai WeRide Tesla Texas automated vehicle tracker autonomous vehicles
Robotaxi scorecard? Lol whatever.
So China’s beating Waymo now? I don’t trust any of these indexes, they’re probably cooked data or whatever. Also Juneteenth slowing people down? That seems like a weird take.
Autnmy AI ranks everyone and “refreshes every 12 hours”?? That sounds like hype dressed up as facts. If they’re using SEC docs and government reports, half that stuff is outdated anyway. I’m also confused how “safety record” is weighed versus revenue cuz those are not the same thing.
I saw Baidu Apollo mentioned and thought that was like a GPS company, so how are they “just ahead” already? Feels like they’re counting contracts and partnerships as progress. Waymo is in actual cities, like I’ve literally seen those cars, so this index must be missing something. Also “generative AI platform” benchmarking… sounds like it could make numbers up or interpret stuff weird.