In 2025 truly driverless cars will remain limited to a modest number of cities, mainly in the West and in good weather.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
What would count as true or false
Judged at the end of 2025. Count the cities where truly driverless vehicles run, meaning no safety driver or attendant on board, in public or commercial service (robotaxi or similar) as of December 2025. The claim has three parts: (a) the number of cities is modest, taken here as roughly 25 or fewer worldwide; (b) most of those cities are in the West (North America and Europe); (c) operations are mainly in fair-weather areas. True: all three hold. Mostly true: (a) holds, and either (b) or (c) is only slightly off, for example Western and non-Western cities are close to evenly split. Mixed: (a) holds but (b) or (c) clearly fails, for example most driverless cities are in China. Mostly false: (a) is borderline exceeded, or both (b) and (c) clearly fail. False: driverless service is widespread, well beyond a few dozen cities, including many outside the West and in harsh-weather areas.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (12)
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E1 Delivering more for our riders in a year of incredible growth Waymo · 10 December 2025
“As we look to 2026, we’re laying the early groundwork for ride-hailing operations in over 20 additional cities in 2026, including international cities like Tokyo and London.”
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E2 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“As of December 2025[update], in addition to Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area, Waymo is operating in Los Angeles, California, Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, and has announced expansion into 24 more metropolitan areas.”
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E3 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“Companies with active robotaxi services include Avride, Baidu, Motional, Pony.ai, Tesla, Waymo, WeRide and Zoox.”
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E4 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“In April 2022, China gave Baidu and Pony.ai its first permits to deploy robotaxis without safety drivers on open roads within a 23 square mile area in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area.”
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E5 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“in addition to Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area, Waymo is operating in Los Angeles, California, Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, and has announced expansion into 24 more metropolitan areas.”
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E6 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“In April 2022, China gave Baidu and Pony.ai its first permits to deploy robotaxis without safety drivers on open roads within a 23 square mile area in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area.”
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E7 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“The rapid adoption of driverless taxis rattled China's gig economy workforce.”
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E8 Robotaxi - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“In October 2025, Waymo announced it would start providing its services in London, its first international operating base, from 2026.”
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E9 Chinese robotaxi companies outnumber Waymo in global push Los Angeles Times (Bloomberg story) · 27 October 2025
“In the U.S., Waymo is the clear industry leader, with fully driverless cars deployed in five cities and testing underway in at least 10 others, but even its technology has encountered issues.”
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E10 Tech Brief (Nov. 4): Baidu’s Robotaxi Service Expands to 22 Cities Caixin Global · 4 November 2025
“Baidu Inc.’s robotaxi service, Apollo Go, has expanded its operations to 22 cities worldwide, the company disclosed Nov. 3.”
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E11 Robotaxi race gathers pace as cities open up to driverless transport BusinessDay (Agency Staff) · 24 December 2025
“In China, Baidu had secured the first permits to commercially offer fully driverless robotaxi services in August 2022, allowing Apollo Go to operate without safety drivers in Chongqing and Wuhan.”
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E12 Chinese robotaxi companies outnumber Waymo in global push Los Angeles Times (Bloomberg story) · 27 October 2025
““Technology-wise, it’s very difficult to say who is ahead or behind, but none are good enough” to operate in inclement conditions such as significant snowfall, he said.”
Reasoning
The evidence shows fully driverless Waymo service in five US cities (E9, E2) and 2022 driverless permits in Beijing, Wuhan and Chongqing (E4, E11). It does not show how many of the 22 cities served by Baidu's Apollo Go (E10), or the cities served by the other listed operators (E3), had driverless service at the end of 2025. Without that count, the evidence cannot settle whether the number of cities was modest or whether most of them were in the West.
Cite this claim
Gary Marcus, “In 2025 truly driverless cars will remain limited to a modest number of cities, mainly in the West and in good weather.” (said 1 January 2025). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_ebfb87f6669c, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_ebfb87f6669c
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.