Waymo kicked its autonomous vehicle plans into high gear. The Alphabet-owned company announced a significant partnership with auto supplier Magna that promises to dramatically expand its Robotaxi operations across America.
Waymo’s current operation already impresses with sheer volume. The company now handles approximately 250,000 weekly rides, translating to an annualized pace of 13 million trips. At an estimated $15-18 per ride, Waymo’s gross bookings have surpassed $200 million annually.
While that’s noteworthy progress, it represents just a fraction of traditional rideshare volume. For perspective, Uber facilitates roughly 2-3 billion mobility trips each year in the US alone.
The company currently maintains around 1,500 autonomous vehicles spread across four key markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. What’s remarkable is that despite falling short of earlier projections, Waymo’s fleet still ranks as the world’s largest L4 autonomous vehicle deployment.
“Waymo’s ambitious robotaxi fleet will expand by an additional 2,000 vehicles by next year,” according to the announcement. Acceleration brings their projected total to approximately 3,500 vehicles by the end of 2026.
The source of these additional vehicles has remained somewhat mysterious until now. Partnership confirms that the Zeekr RT, closely related to the Zeekr MIX, will form part of Waymo’s ambitious robotaxi fleet expansion.
Interestingly, this project initially came through CEVT, a Swedish R&D operation owned by Chinese automotive giant Geely. Arrangement potentially provides Waymo a workaround for trade restrictions that might otherwise impact vehicles manufactured directly in China.
Industry analysts suggest Waymo would need approximately 40k robotaxis to achieve meaningful coverage across major US cities. Target still falls significantly below the estimated 150k traditional taxis and approximately 1.4 million Uber drivers currently operating nationwide.
The Magna partnership represents a crucial step toward addressing these scaling challenges. By leveraging Magna’s manufacturing expertise, Waymo can potentially accelerate production beyond what was previously possible with limited manufacturing partners.
For Waymo’s ambitious Robotaxi fleet to truly transform urban mobility, production capacity must increase dramatically. Partnership signals the company is ready to move from experimental deployments to true commercial scale.
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