EVwire brief: A community tracker that photographs Waymo's Magna factory in Mesa, Arizona, from the air recently counted 953 Ojai robotaxis on the lot. Of those, 684 have been converted with Waymo's autonomous hardware and are seemingly cleared for deployment.
The monthly count, shared on the r/waymo subreddit by user jjricks_, hints at a steep ramp in the Mesa factory. In early June, the count stood at roughly 500, which suggests that the factory lot has nearly doubled in two months.
The August count also found a dozen Hyundai IONIQ 5 units on the lot, all fully converted. It is the first time the IONIQ 5 has shown up ready at the Mesa facility.
Waymo’s factory in Mesa, AZ is getting a lot busier. (Source)
Context:
Waymo designed the Ojai as its first purpose-built robotaxi. Zeekr, Geely's premium EV brand, builds the base vehicle in China. It is then shipped to Magna’s Mesa factory for autonomous hardware integration. The Ojai runs Waymo's sixth-generation Driver system with 13 cameras, six radar sensors, and four LiDAR units, over 40% fewer sensors than the previous generation.
Waymo opened public rides in the Ojai in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles in late May. The company operates a fleet of about 4,000 vehicles and provides roughly 500,000 paid rides per week.
DON'T FORGET to subscribe to our EV industry newsletter to join 14,000+ EV geeks.
