California State Policy Manager

Robotaxi crash data is strong, but untested for Canada's weather. Arity's Henry Kowal says early robotaxi crash data is promising but drawn from limited conditions 24 Sep 2026 The early numbers on robotaxi safety look genuinely impressive - but according to Henry Kowal (pictured), director of insurance product at Arity, the data behind those numbers is still too narrow for the industry to treat it as the full picture. "I think the early data that we're seeing is encouraging. However, I think the data that we're currently seeing is limited," Kowal said in an interview with Insurance Business. That gap may prove especially relevant for Canada: snowy and rainy conditions are exactly what robotaxi safety data hasn't captured at scale so far, and that could soon change as fleets expand into harsher climates. The numbers so far. Waymo remains the dominant player in the robotaxi space, and Kowal pointed to the scale of its safety data as the strongest evidence available today. "They have over 20 million paid rides so far. They're doing about half a million a week now. And they've logged 200 million fully autonomous miles... their peer-reviewed safety impact data reports that about 93% fewer pedestrian injury crashes and about 94% fewer serious or fatal injury crashes versus the same-city human benchmark," Kowal said, citing Waymo's own published safety data. A separate, independent study released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reached a similar, if more conservative, conclusion, finding Waymo vehicles were involved in 68% fewer police-reportable crashes per mile than human drivers across San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin. The trouble, Kowal said, is how narrow the conditions behind those numbers actually are. Waymo remains far ahead of every other entrant - Uber, Tesla and Zoox included - meaning almost all of the safety evidence collected to date comes from a single operator. Tesla, for instance, is currently running only a few dozen vehicles compared with Waymo's roughly 4,000. On top of that, robotaxis currently run almost exclusively in mapped, temperate cities. "They typically exclude things such as heavy snow and flooding... it's data being collected in a very controlled environment," Kowal said. That's a meaningful gap for a Canadian audience. Cities like Toronto see the kind of heavy snow, ice and seasonal flooding that robotaxi fleets have largely avoided so far, and Waymo's own service has only recently expanded into its first real winter-weather market, Denver - where the vehicles are currently designed to pull over rather than drive through snow. Insurance Business Canada previously reported on a Waymo recall triggered by a vehicle that entered a flooded highway in Texas, an example of exactly the kind of weather-related edge case still largely untested at scale. What the July 4th stranding revealed. Kowal pointed to an incident in San Francisco this past July 4th, when a number of Waymo vehicles became stranded amid holiday fireworks, heavy congestion and a cell service blackout, as a clear illustration of where the real risk sits. "It wasn't like the driving software that failed, it was really more the human environment that overwhelmed the system," Kowal said. That matters for how the industry should be reading the safety data, he said. The vehicles themselves performed as designed; it was the unpredictable conditions around them, generated by human activity, that created the disruption. It's a dynamic he expects to keep surfacing as robotaxi fleets scale into busier, messier, and more varied environments than the ones they've mostly operated in so far. "How do these cars, how do these vehicles coexist with the human drivers that are on the road?" Kowal said. IIHS's own caveat. Even the researchers behind the IIHS study aren't calling the picture complete. Kowal noted that IIHS itself flagged a limitation in how robotaxi safety is currently being tracked. "They did say that, at least from their perspective, they didn't believe the monitoring system is good enough yet to track robotaxis at a full-scale rollout," Kowal said. That caveat is part of why Kowal keeps coming back to the same underlying issue: the vehicles themselves may be performing well, but the environment they're driving through is still the wildcard.

Waymo: introducing transit rewards. Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help Cleantechnica produce all of the high-quality, original content Cleantechnica publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles. Today, Waymo is excited to announce its transit rewards program, which Cleantechnica will initially offer in the San Francisco Bay Area, with future cities to follow. This first-of-its-kind initiative rewards riders with Waymo Cash when they connect their Waymo rides with public transit and use their Visa card. Cleantechnica'll start with employee access before gradually rolling out to the public in the coming weeks. Public transit networks and shared autonomous vehicles are part of a complementary mobility ecosystem. As transit agencies modernize their payment systems to accept tap-to-pay debit and credit cards, multimodal trips are becoming more convenient than ever. Autos & Vehicles "Governor Newsom has challenged all of us to build a transportation system that meets Californians where they are, and that means making the trip to the station as effortless as the train ride itself," said California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin. "CalSTA welcomes innovations that reward people for choosing transit and make a multimodal trip feel like one seamless journey." Recent surveys show that over 50% of Waymo riders in its most mature service areas (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix) use public transit, so Cleantechnica is proud to invest directly in this connectivity to make everyday commutes easier and more affordable. The transit rewards program works alongside the regional transfer discount programs and tap-to-pay model launched in the San Francisco Bay Area last December. The program applies to all 27 San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies that accept contactless Visa tap-to-pay. "San José has always believed innovation should make everyday life work better," said San José Mayor Matt Mahan. "This partnership does exactly that by using new technology to strengthen public transit, not replace it, making regional travel more seamless and giving people more ways to get where they need to go." Engineering & Technology To participate, riders will link their Visa card in the Waymo app. When riders in the SF Bay Area use their Visa card to take a Waymo trip and public transit within 2 hours of each other, Cleantechnica will automatically issue $2.85 in Waymo Cash, which is the cost of a bus fare in San Francisco. Alongside the launch of its transit rewards program, Cleantechnica is also announcing a partnership with Caltrain, which accepts tap-to-pay. Waymo will lease 40 dedicated Caltrain station parking spaces to better serve transit riders with staged vehicles. This is a model Cleantechnica hope to replicate with additional transit agencies, ultimately enabling more seamless connections between Waymo's service and public transit. This launch is the next step toward making its vision of shared mobility a reality. By taking the learnings from its transit credit pilot programs in San Francisco and Los Angeles, adding Waymo's service to the LA Metro Mobility Wallet program, and kicking off a strategic microtransit partnership with Via in Chandler, AZ, Cleantechnica has been steadily learning what it takes to offer a successful transit integration product and are pleased to formally launch transit rewards. "Shared mobility is a team effort, and our autonomous ride-hailing service helps expand clean transportation options for everyone," said Adam Lenz, Head of Sustainability & Environment at Waymo. "We're thrilled to partner with local transit agencies to fill multimodal gaps and make daily commutes easier through our new transit rewards program." Its goal is to expand this transit rewards program and transit agency partnerships to more cities over time, ultimately making shared, all-electric transportation more accessible and affordable for everyone.

Waymo launches teen accounts in Nashville. Posted: Sep 22, 2026 / 01:12 PM CDT Updated: Sep 22, 2026 / 05:40 PM CDT NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) - Teenagers have been given digital access to independently hail driverless rides in Nashville. On Tuesday, Waymo announced the launch of specialized accounts for teens aged 13 to 17 across the company's 50-square-mile Nashville service area. The accounts are linked to a parent or guardian's app, and were first launched in Phoenix last year. District 19 Metro Council Member Jacob Kupin said he was excited for teen accounts. "It will provide another option for safe transportation in Nashville," Kupin said in a statement shared on behalf of Waymo. "I look forward to utilizing this new option to keep our kids safe, give them a sense of independence, and help manage the family calendar." According to Waymo, trained agents are available to assist teens during rides and parents can track the car's status in real-time. Waymo gave a small group of Nashville families early access ahead of the launch. According to Tuesday's release, the service provided a reliable and safe way for Nashville teen Asher Huffman to get home from a concert. Asher said he enjoyed the experience. "I even got to show Waymo off to my friend. Getting to play my music as loud as I want, with no one else in the car, was also awesome. Kind of like I was in my own little bubble," said Asher. Waymo started serving Nashville passengers in early April. Since then, the city has received 72 complaints or concerns about driverless cars through hubNashville. Any observations or concerns about autonomous vehicles can be reported through hubNashville or by calling 311. Waymo also has a page dedicated to concerns.