Waymo, the top U.S. robotaxi company, is looking to expand the business internationally with plans to begin its first overseas tests in Tokyo early next year, while it also continues to expand the service to more U.S. cities.
The Alphabet Inc. subsidiary will send a fleet of electric Jaguar I-Pace SUVs to Japan early next year to begin mapping some of the densest districts of central Tokyo. To aid that effort, Waymo said it’s partnering with Nihon Kotsu, Japan’s biggest taxi operator, and taxi app operator GO. The company didn’t offer a timeframe for when it expects the driverless vehicles to be in commercial service.
The news comes on the heels of Waymo’s plan to launch its ride service in Miami next year, along with Austin and Atlanta. Currently, it’s available in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where every week it carries more than 150,000 riders combined. The company doesn’t share financial details for the service, though its annualized revenue is tracking at more than $150 million based on the weekly ridership rate.
Last week, General Motors announced it was pulling the plug on Cruise, its competing robotaxi service and Waymo’s biggest U.S. rival, deciding instead to focus its autonomous driving tech efforts on personal vehicles. Elon Musk’s Tesla aspires to be a leader in robotaxis – something that’s helping boost its stock price in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win – but the company hasn’t demonstrated that it has the ability to do that.
Despite the name, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features are classified as advanced driver-assist technologies that aren’t capable of operating a vehicle without a human at the wheel, ready to take over. By contrast, Waymo’s robotaxis operate with no human driver, though the company does have staff monitoring them and who can provide some remote backup assistance.
In November, Waymo said it had raised $5.6 billion in its biggest-ever funding round ahead of major expansion plans. Additionally, it intends to begin sourcing electric vehicles from Hyundai starting next year, which cost about 40% less than the I-Pace model it uses, as it also shifts to lower-cost computing and sensor hardware.
