EVWire brief: Waymo announced it has a new 239,000-square-foot factory in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, Arizona, through a deal with Magna to build more than 2,000 autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.
“This facility’s flexible design also enables us to integrate the 6th-generation Waymo Driver on new vehicle platforms, beginning this year with the Zeekr RT.”
Waymo says the plant “will introduce an automated assembly line and other efficiencies over time.” Which gives us a surprising realization that the assembly is not automated as of now…
Waymo says the vehicles are rider-ready from the factory — vehicles assigned to their Phoenix fleet drive themselves out of the facility and directly into service. These vehicles can pick up their first public passengers less than 30 minutes after leaving the factory.
Waymo’s existing fleet has now reached 1,500 vehicles, and it is now providing over 250,000 paid robotaxi trips per week.
Waymo recently reached a preliminary agreement with Toyota to explore a collaboration focused on accelerating the development and deployment of autonomous driving technologies: Toyota and Waymo aim to combine their respective strengths to develop a new autonomous vehicle platform.
Waymo has recalled (via an over-the-air software update), 1,212 self-driving vehicles in the US following minor collisions with fixed roadside objects such as gates and chains.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said this in the latest earnings call, about Waymo: “There's future optionality around personal ownership [of the vehicle] as well.”
In Boston, Waymo will have a fleet of EVs (driven by humans) in May and June, mapping out the city's streets. "We like to have an understanding of a city before we commit,” says Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp. (link)
Waymo’s robotaxi rollout also started in Tokyo in April, although with human taxi drivers operating it for now. This seems also to be the reason that this rather iconic (and quite viral) image of a Waymo being pulled over by a local police motorcycle took place:
Source: Factory announcement, Toyota partnership
