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They both have been losing about $2-3 billion per year for the past five years and were losing $1 billion per year before. Waymo started in 2009 and Cruise started in 2013. Waymo has probably has cumulative losses of $15-20 billion since they started and Cruise has cumulative losses of $10-15 billion.
Robotaxi companies are trying to take market share from Uber and other human driven ridehailing. The robotaxi companies only have a few million in revenue now but the leaders have over $2 billion per year in costs and losses. Cruise, Waymo and the others are paying for thousands of programmers and support staff but not a few hundred drivers for a few hundred robotaxi. They are also buying all of their robotaxi while Uber hires drivers that use their own vehicles.
GM Cruise and robotaxi companies have huge costs for the development, purchase and maintenance of the robotaxi fleet. Uber and human ridehailing incumbants can cut prices in the cities where the robotaxi try to launch. Uber can cut a deal with the third or fourth place robotaxi companies to get their robotaxi. Uber has many advantages and GM Cruise and the other robotaxi companies may never become profitable. GM Cruise and Waymo’s best chance is to get to scale by 2030 by spending $50-100 billion on a large fleet and have it operate perfectly.
If a Robotaxi company wanted to equal Uber revenue today from 6 million cars and drivers, then they would need at least 1 million robotaxi. They are building and owning their own robotaxi. This would cost about $50 billion for 1 million robotaxi. They must have the software development and the support staff. The suppporrt and maintenance staff increases as the robotaxi fleet increases even if the 2000-3000 programmers stays relatively flat. What is an estimate of a staff to maintain a fleet without the drivers? Hertz rents 424,000 cars with a maintenance and sales staff of 25000. Uber only has a staff of 32000 to operate 6 million cars and drivers.
From 2018 to 2021, SoftBank Vision Fund, GM, Honda, Microsoft and others have invested over $8 billion in Cruise. GM’s Cruise robotaxi service has expanded from 70 to 300 robotaxis operating in San Francisco and will soon expand to Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin and Dubai. GM Cruise had increasing losses of $561 million in the first quarter of 2023. This will be over $2 billion in losses in 2023. GM Cruise will having increasing billions in net losses until they reach profitable scale.
IF GM Cruise grows revenue by 1000 to 2000 times (100,000% to 200,000%) by 2030 and achieves operational and financial efficiency then it would become very profitable. However, they must continue to undercut Uber, taxi and public transit and gain market share while also fighting off Waymo and other robotaxis. This will take perhaps $50-100 billion or much more cumulative losses to finally reach profitability. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/08/why-waymo-and-cruise-will-go-bankrupt.html