A Waymo robotaxi stops at a red light in Washington, D.C.
CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Waymo, the leading operator of robotaxis, said it will work with Toyota to design a new platform for autonomous cars and trucks and study ways to adapt its automated driving technology for personal vehicles. The announcement comes on the heels of Alphabet’s CEO saying that using Waymo’s system for personal use was a future possibility.
The world’s largest automaker shares a “strong sense of purpose and a common vision with Waymo in advancing safety through automated driving technology,” Hiroki Nakajima, Toyota’s executive vice president, said in a joint statement with Waymo. “We are confident this collaboration can help bring our solutions to more people around the world, moving us one step closer to a zero-accident society.”
Toyota has had an in-house program working on autonomous vehicles for years and is expanding the use of advanced driver-assist features across both the Toyota and Lexus product lines, though it hasn’t announced plans to launch its own robotaxi service. Waymo also works with Hyundai Motor, which will begin supplying it with electric Ioniq 5 hatchbacks later this year for use in its fast-growing robotaxi fleet.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, asked last week about Waymo’s long-term growth during the company’s quarterly results call, said “future optionality around personal ownership” might be in cars, without elaborating. That was a reiteration of a plan first announced by former Waymo CEO John Kracik in 2018, though the company has said little about it since then.
Waymo is booking more than 250,000 paid robotaxi rides a week in Phoenix, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Austin. It’s preparing to expand the service to Atlanta, Miami and Washington, DC, and is testing its electric Jaguar I-PACE SUVs in Nashville and Tokyo.
Working with Toyota directly on an autonomous vehicle platform, which both companies might share, could help drive down the cost of such vehicles, helping to make them more profitable to operate. Making Waymo’s system available for use in personal vehicles–which unlike Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving feature is truly autonomous and requires no human monitoring to take control–would likely be available as a subscription service and a lucrative new source of revenue for the Mountain View, California-based company on top of its robotaxi business.
The companies said the scope of their collaboration “will continue to evolve through ongoing discussions.” They didn’t provide any financial details about the partnership and a Waymo spokesperson didn’t immediately comment on the matter.
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