May 13, 2025 21:00:00

Google sister company Waymo is expanding its manufacturing plant for fully self-driving cars in the US, and will more than double its robotaxi fleet by 2026

Waymo , which is testing self-driving cars in Japan in partnership with taxi company Nihon Kotsu and taxi app GO , is expanding its self-driving car manufacturing base in the United States.

Scaling our fleet through US manufacturing
https://waymo.com/blog/2025/05/scaling-our-fleet-through-us-manufacturing

Waymo to double robotaxi production at Arizona plant by end of 2026
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/05/waymo-to-double-robotaxi-production-at-arizona-plant-by-end-of-2026.html

Waymo ramps up robotaxi production at new Arizona factory | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/05/waymo-ramps-up-robotaxi-production-at-new-arizona-factory/

Waymo says it will add 2,000 more robotaxis into 2026 | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/661025/waymo-fleet-size-factory-arizona-jaguar-robotaxi-zeekr

Waymo partners with Magna for new vehicle factory in Arizona | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/waymo-partners-with-magna-new-vehicle-factory-arizona-2025-05-06/

Waymo is a sister company of Google and develops the self-driving taxi 'Waymo One'. In the United States, Waymo One provides more than 250,000 paid rides per week in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, and plans to offer Waymo One in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington DC in 2026.

To scale Waymo One and meet growing passenger demand, Waymo needs to expand its fleet of vehicles equipped with its versatile, fully self-driving system, the Waymo Driver . To accommodate the growing number of Waymo One users in the U.S., Waymo partnered with Magna to build a new Waymo Driver integration factory in Mesa, Arizona.

The 239,000 square foot Waymo Driver integration facility represents a multi-million dollar investment creating hundreds of jobs for the region. The new facility will be used to integrate the Waymo Driver into the Jaguar I-PACE .

Regarding the opening of the Waymo Driver integrated factory in Mesa, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs said, 'Waymo and Magna's new manufacturing facility in Mesa is the latest example of Arizona becoming a new hub for technology innovation and growth. We are proud that autonomous vehicles are on our streets every day, helping people get to their destinations safely. This new manufacturing facility will further strengthen our presence, and the jobs it will create locally will help Arizona's technology economy continue to grow on the global stage.'

Waymo One has grown significantly over the past few years, and as the number of users increases, the number of vehicles in operation is gradually expanding. More than 1,500 vehicles are already in operation in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, and more than 2,000 'Jaguar I-PACEs equipped with Waymo Driver' are scheduled to be added by 2026.

'Our new Waymo Driver integrated factory in Mesa is at the center of our future growth plans,' said Ryan McNamara, Waymo's vice president of operations. 'Our partnership with Magna provides us with a manufacturing site that will increase cost efficiency, flexibility and capacity to take our vehicle fleet to new levels.'

The flexible design of the Waymo Driver integrated factory will enable it to integrate Waymo Driver into vehicles such as the RT electric vehicle manufactured by Chinese automaker

Zeekr from 2025. Due to the need to mass-produce multiple platforms simultaneously, the Waymo Driver integrated factory will gradually introduce efficiency measures such as automated assembly lines, which will enable the factory to produce tens of thousands of fully autonomous vehicles per year when fully operational.

In addition, fully autonomous vehicles manufactured at the newly established Waymo Driver integrated factory in Mesa can be put into operation immediately after leaving the factory. It is appealing that it can pick up passengers within 30 minutes of leaving the factory.

The Mesa Waymo Driver integrated factory is scheduled to open in October 2024, and Forbes has had the opportunity to interview the company exclusively. According to reports, the Mesa Waymo Driver integrated factory produces several Jaguar I-PACEs a day equipped with Waymo's proprietary computers, cameras, radar, LiDAR, and other systems.

Although the production scale is very small compared to a normal automobile factory that produces hundreds of thousands of vehicles per year, Waymo's robot taxis (1,500 vehicles) transport paying passengers more than 250,000 times a week, which means that each vehicle transports paying passengers 24 times a day. This is a much higher usage rate than private cars and trucks that only drive a few times a day. Therefore, Forbes points out that by the time Waymo is able to operate 10,000 robot taxis for Waymo One, the company's annual sales may reach $2 billion (about 296 billion yen).

In addition to the Jaguar I-PACE, Waymo plans to integrate the Waymo Driver into Zeekr's RT and Hyundai's IONIQ 5. Both vehicles are significantly cheaper than the Jaguar I-PACE, but Forbes reports that the reciprocal tariffs introduced by President Donald Trump have made it difficult to import the RT.

In addition, Waymo's self-driving system is equipped with more advanced and expensive sensors than Tesla's, and Elon Musk has criticized Tesla's cars as 'much more expensive' than Tesla's competitors' self-driving cars. In fact, Waymo's self-driving cars are equipped with radar sensors, LiDAR , cameras, sonar, etc., while Tesla's self-driving system mainly detects the surrounding environment using cameras alone.