EVwire brief: Waymo is expanding to Singapore, partnering with the city-state's Ministry of Transport and Land Transport Authority to bring its autonomous, all-electric ride-hailing service to riders there starting in 2028.
The rollout will happen in stages. An initial fleet of Waymo Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will arrive in Singapore in the coming months as the company establishes local operations. Next year, trained autonomous specialists will begin manually driving the vehicles to adapt the Waymo Driver to Singapore's local road geometry, traffic environment, monsoon weather patterns, and other conditions.
Waymo then intends to begin its fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in 2028, with customers able to book rides through the Waymo app.
Waymo’s Singapore welcome.
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Waymo says its autonomous fleet has now completed more than 20 million fully autonomous rides and driven more than 300 million fully autonomous kilometres (186 million miles). The company also reports a 94% reduction in injury-causing crashes compared with human drivers in the U.S. cities where it currently operates fully autonomously.
Waymo plans to position its service as a complement to Singapore’s existing public transportation network, particularly for first- and last-mile connections. The company says more than a third of its riders in San Francisco are picked up or dropped off near transit stations, and it wants to use autonomous rides to help connect residential and commercial areas with mass transit in Singapore.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana and Jeffrey Siow, Singapore's Minister for Transport, celebrating Waymo’s entry into Singapore.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana framed the move as a natural fit given Singapore's own transport ambitions:
Singapore has built one of the safest, most efficient, and most forward-thinking transportation ecosystems in the world. Their focus on reliability, sustainability, and human-centric progress directly mirrors how we have built Waymo's technology and service.
As we begin our journey here, we are committed to listening to the community, creating high-skilled local operational jobs, and working hand-in-hand with national leaders to complement Singapore's world class public transit network.
Mawakana also shared some insights on LinkedIn:
Singapore's Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow, who first met Mawakana's team in March, welcomed Waymo as the country's newest autonomous vehicle operator:
Singapore welcomes Waymo's entry as our newest autonomous vehicle operator. Waymo brings world-class technology and operational expertise to Singapore, and will move us towards our vision of creating new transport options for Singaporeans. The partnership will also strengthen our ecosystem and create new capabilities and jobs here.
Siow also highlighted Waymo’s entry into Singapore on LinkedIn:
Context:
Singapore is the latest stop in a busy stretch of Waymo international news. Just last month, Waymo picked Munich for its next European ride-hailing launch, targeting public rides by late 2027. That expansion has been backed by groundwork on the insurance side too: Waymo recently partnered with Allianz Partners on insurance, claims, and safety research for its European robotaxi rollout, starting in Germany.
Singapore, alongside Tokyo and London, is one of three markets Waymo has now named as it works through the same "methodical, safety-first" playbook abroad that it used to scale across the U.S. Unlike those two, Singapore also gives Waymo its first foothold in Southeast Asia, and its climate adds a new variable Waymo hasn't had to design around before: the readiness phase explicitly calls out adapting the Waymo Driver to monsoon weather patterns.
Source: Waymo
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