内容来源：https://aibusiness.com/iot/robotaxi-leader-waymo-confirms-16b-funding-round

内容总结：

谷歌旗下Waymo完成巨额融资 自动驾驶行业格局生变

近日，谷歌母公司Alphabet旗下的自动驾驶公司Waymo宣布完成新一轮高达160亿美元的融资，公司估值达到1260亿美元。此轮融资由Alphabet领投，Dragoneer Investment、DST Global、红杉资本等知名投资机构参与。

作为全球自动驾驶出租车（Robotaxi）领域的先驱，Waymo在过去几年业务迅速扩张。其无人驾驶出租车服务已在美国旧金山湾区、凤凰城、洛杉矶和迈阿密等多个城市落地，并通过与优步的合作进入奥斯汀和亚特兰市场。相比之下，其主要竞争对手通用汽车旗下的Cruise因2023年10月在旧金山发生行人受伤事故后陷入停滞，而特斯拉的Robotaxi承诺则进展缓慢，目前仅在奥斯汀进行了有限度的试运营。

Waymo将其市场领先地位归功于卓越的安全记录。公司宣称，在累计超过1.27亿英里（约合2.04亿公里）的完全自动驾驶里程中，其严重伤害事故率比人类驾驶降低了90%。技术路线上，Waymo采用“基于规则”的自动驾驶方案，在预先绘制的高精地图区域内，结合摄像头、激光雷达、雷达等多传感器数据与人工智能进行决策。这与特斯拉等公司采用的依赖神经网络、更接近人类思维的“端到端”AI方案形成鲜明对比。

获得本轮资金后，Waymo公布了积极的扩张计划。目标是在2026年将网约车服务拓展至达拉斯、丹佛、底特律、休斯顿等十余个美国城市，并筹备在伦敦和东京启动其首批国际运营。此次融资不仅巩固了Waymo在西方市场的领先地位，也为全球自动驾驶行业的竞争与发展注入了新的变量。

中文翻译：

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作为自动驾驶出租车领域的先驱，隶属于谷歌母公司Alphabet的Waymo在过去几年迅猛扩张，现已在美国多地提供无人驾驶出租车服务。
这家自动驾驶技术公司近期宣布完成160亿美元的新一轮融资，估值达1260亿美元。

Waymo近年业务版图快速拓展，目前已在旧金山湾区、凤凰城都市区、洛杉矶和迈阿密等地提供无人驾驶服务，同时通过优步平台在奥斯汀和亚特兰大运营自动驾驶车辆。
该公司上一轮融资发生于2024年10月的C轮融资，当时以450亿美元估值筹集了56亿美元。

本轮融资除主要投资者Alphabet外，还吸引了Dragoneer Investment、DST Global、红杉资本、老虎环球基金和谷歌风投等机构注资。

尽管文远知行、百度Apollo Go和小马智行等中国自动驾驶企业在本土及中东、亚洲市场取得进展，Waymo在西方市场已确立明显领先地位。
该公司不仅超越了竞争对手通用汽车旗下的Cruise（该品牌在2023年10月旧金山行人事故后遭母公司削减投资），也领先于特斯拉——后者去年在奥斯汀试点的自动驾驶服务仍需配备安全员，其完全自动驾驶承诺尚未实现。

Waymo在官方博客中表示，其成功源于"统计学上优于人类驾驶"的安全记录："在累计1.27亿英里（相当于往返月球260余次）的全自动驾驶里程中，我们已将严重事故率降低90%。"

该公司采用"基于规则"的自动驾驶方案，其人工智能系统在预设高清地图区域内，通过同步处理图像、文本指令以及摄像头、激光雷达、雷达等多传感器数据，依托历史场景数据与工程逻辑实现自动驾驶功能。
这与特斯拉等企业推崇的"端到端"人工智能方案形成对比：后者采用类人思维的神经网络系统，对传感器依赖度较低，主要通过视频数据训练实现通用人工智能，所需编码更少。

获得最新融资后，Waymo计划于2026年进行业务扩张，目标在达拉斯、丹佛、底特律、休斯顿、拉斯维加斯、迈阿密、纳什维尔、奥兰多、圣安东尼奥、圣迭戈和华盛顿等美国城市推出网约车服务，并正筹备在伦敦和东京启动首批国际运营。

英文来源：

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The robotaxi pioneer, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, has expanded dramatically in the past couple of years and now offers driverless cabs in locations across the U.S.
Self-driving tech company Waymo unveiled a new funding round of $16 billion that sees the firm valued at $126 billion.
The robotaxi pioneer, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, has expanded dramatically in the past couple of years and now offers driverless cabs in locations across the U.S., including the San Francisco Bay Area, the Phoenix metropolitan area, Los Angeles and Miami. Autonomous Waymo cabs are also offered via Uber in Austin and Atlanta.
Waymo's previous funding round was a Series C in October 2024, which raised $5.6 billion at a $45 billion valuation.
Alongside chief investor Alphabet, among those injecting capital this time around are Dragoneer Investment, DST Global, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and Google Ventures.
While there are several Chinese robotaxi companies making progress in their home market and the Middle East and Asia including WeRide, Baidu's Apollo Go and Pony.ai, in the west Waymo has emerged as a clear leader.
It outlasted competitor General Motors' Cruise, which the automaker stopped funding after the fallout of an incident in which a pedestrian was injured in San Francisco in October 2023. It has also forged ahead of Tesla, which has so far largely failed to deliver on its robotaxi promises, as was seen by the soft launch of a service in Austin last year with human safety operators.
Waymo said its success is based on its safety record, which it described as being "statistically superior" to human driving. "Across 127 million miles of fully autonomous operation — the equivalent of going to the moon and back over 260 times — we have achieved a 90% reduction in serious injury crashes," according to the blog post.
It has advocated what is considered a "rules-based" approach to autonomous driving, where its AI processes images and text prompts in tandem with data from cameras, Lidar, radars and other sensors in pre-mapped areas. This delivers automated functionality via predictions based on data acquired from previous scenarios and engineered logic.
This contrasts with the "end-to-end" AI favored by Tesla and others, which is a neural network based system that sees cars "think" more like humans and is less reliant on sensors. This generalized AI is trained on videos and requires less coding.
With its latest funding secure, Waymo is planning an expansion for 2026, with a number of U.S. cities — including Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego and Washington — all targeted for ride-hailing services. Waymo is also preparing for its first international operations in London and Tokyo.