Wages for ride-hailing drivers in robotaxi cities are changing, data shows

When Uber and Lyft disrupted the taxi industry, many studies documented how wages for taxi drivers fell.

And with autonomous vehicles emerging in major ride-hailing markets, robots are poised to shake up the business model for Uber and Lyft drivers.

A new report from Gridwise, a rideshare and delivery platform that helps workers track their earnings, showed that driver wages have changed in the past year in AV-active cities. However, the report paints a nuanced picture in which wages can be impacted by many other factors, including the demand in a particular city.

“Right now, we are seeing some clear distinction of AVs having an impact on the pre-existing supply in those markets of human drivers,” Ryan Green, CEO of Gridwise, told Business Insider. “So we do see an impact on pay, but it’s too early to determine how this may play out in the long-term, in my opinion.”

Wages in robotaxi markets

The study compared driver wages through several different lenses — pay per trip, hourly pay, monthly earnings, etc. — between the month of July 2024 and July 2025. The report includes data from 500,000 Gridwise users over the course of the year, Green said.

Throughout the year, Alphabet’s Waymo made its robotaxis available to the public in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. The company has been operating in Phoenix since 2020.

Tesla’s robotaxi also began a pilot launch of its service in Austin in June.

When examining per-trip earnings and hourly pay, Gridwise data showed how the wage fluctuations went against the national trend.

Hourly pay dropped in every AV-active market, while the nationwide median hourly pay increased 1%: Austin (-5.3%), Los Angeles (-4.7%), Phoenix (-3.8%), and San Francisco (-6.9%).

“Because hourly pay reflects both earnings and ride volume, these declines may reflect shifts in rideshare demand, potentially influenced by early AV deployment as well as other factors such as rider mix, trip length, or incentive changes,” the study said.

For per-trip earnings, excluding tip, the nationwide number showed a 3.4% increase, while most AV markets saw a decline except for Los Angeles, remaining nearly flat at a .4% increase: Austin (-5.3%), Phoenix (-2.4%), and San Francisco (-3.1%).

The Gridwise report notes that “earnings pressure” is not the same across all AV-active cities.

Monthly earnings also show a different picture. While Austin (-7.0%), Los Angeles (-18.4%), and Phoenix (-9.0%) showed a decline, San Francisco remained resilient with a 7.8% increase, nearly keeping up with the nationwide increase at 8%.

The Gridwise report said that the declines in hourly pay and utilization — or the percentage of time spent on active trips — suggest that “drivers in that market may be working more hours to maintain overall income.”

Ride-hailing experts told Business Insider that the Gridwise report could provide early insight into how AVs are shaping driver earnings, but the data is limited.

Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, told BI that there could be sample bias because Gridwise relies on data from drivers who opt in. There could also be other factors, including broader economic trends such as post-pandemic travel shifts.

“The methodological challenge is disentangling correlation from causation: Are lower earnings driven by robotaxis entering the market, or by simultaneous shifts in incentives, demand, and rider mix?” Shaheen said.

A spokesperson for Uber said that earnings in any city “can be influenced by many factors, including growth and new technologies like AVs.”

“Gridwise’s reporting is based on just a subset of drivers and isn’t representative of the broader Uber platform,” the spokesperson said. “We’re tracking this closely, talking with drivers about it, and believe the future will be hybrid for a long time. For now, both the need and opportunities for drivers remain strong.”

A Lyft spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

A hybrid future

Gad Allon, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who focuses on the gig economy, told BI that it’s “too early” to say definitively how AVs are impacting drivers’ wages.

In a future where more robotaxis are on the roads, Allon said some research has suggested that wages for human drivers could increase to incentivize them to work, especially if they’d help cover the demand during peak hours.

“The only drivers that will remain driving are those that you can pay enough to continue to drive,” he said. Allon added that we haven’t reached the “threshold” at which point drivers are saying “it’s just not worth it anymore.”

Uber’s robotaxi chief Andrew Macdonald said at a conference in May that he envisions autonomous cars will eventually take a “large percentage” of trips in city centers, but human drivers will still be required, especially in extreme weather.

Green, the Gridwise CEO, echoed the hybrid model vision.

“I think for years to come, Gridwise envisions a hybrid model,” he said. “As we look out to 2030, and probably beyond, we foresee human drivers will still be needed and necessary for the future state of mobility.”

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