Waymo closed a $5 billion loan from a group of institutional lenders led by Blackstone and PIMCO, giving the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company fresh capital to expand its robotaxi service into new cities. The deal, confirmed Tuesday, ranks among the largest debt financings raised by a self-driving car company.
The lender syndicate also includes Capital Group, Loomis Sayles, T. Rowe Price, Apollo, Blue Owl, Diameter Capital Partners and Franklin Templeton, according to people familiar with the transaction. The mix of asset managers and private credit firms signals that institutional investors are willing to underwrite autonomous vehicle operations as a maturing business rather than a speculative bet.
Waymo currently runs commercial driverless ride-hailing in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin, and has begun testing in additional markets. The company says it completes more than 150,000 paid trips per week across its operating cities, a figure that has grown sharply since it opened its service to the general public.
The loan structure matters because robotaxi expansion is capital-intensive. Each Waymo vehicle carries lidar, radar and camera hardware that pushes per-unit costs well above a standard car, and the company must build depot, charging and maintenance infrastructure in every city it enters. Debt financing lets Waymo fund that buildout without diluting Alphabet shareholders or waiting on a public offering.
Alphabet has spent years absorbing Waymo's losses. In its most recent quarterly filing, Alphabet reported that its "Other Bets" segment, which houses Waymo, continued to post operating losses even as revenue grew. The $5 billion loan shifts part of that burden onto private lenders betting that ride-hailing margins will improve as Waymo scales and its per-mile costs fall.
Competitors face the same capital math. Tesla has pledged to launch its own robotaxi service, and Amazon's Zoox is testing purpose-built driverless vehicles. Cruise, the General Motors subsidiary once seen as Waymo's closest rival, halted operations in 2023 after a pedestrian incident in San Francisco and has since restructured under new leadership.
Waymo has not disclosed the interest rate or maturity of the loan. The company has raised outside capital before, including a $5.6 billion funding round in 2024 led by Alphabet and outside investors, which valued the business above $45 billion at the time.
