Google's Waymo holds on to its driverless-car lead

Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo kept its lead in driverless cars in California, but General Motors Co.'s Cruise and startups, such as Zoox Inc., are closing the gap. California's DMV this week released 2018 data on its autonomous-car permit holders and the miles they have driven, saying AVs with a "safety driver," or those ready to intervene as needed in a test driverless vehicle, drove 2.05 million miles on the state's public roads, four times more than 2017's 507,000 miles driven. California requires every company conducting driverless-car tests on its public roads to report every January their prior-year monthly miles driven and "disengagements," or instances where human drivers had to take control of the driverless cars to avoid incidents or to test a feature. See also: GM investors are undervaluing company's restructuring savings, Deutsche Bank says Alphabet's GOOG, 0.13% GOOGL, 0.05% Waymo continued to lead the pack, driving about 1.3 million miles, compared with 353,000 miles in 2017. GM GM, -0.28% Cruise's test cars drove 448,000 miles.