Waymo’s autonomous vehicles will be heading to Tokyo. This is the first time the Alphabet-owned company has deployed vehicles on public roads outside the United States.
Waymo describes the trip as a “roadtrip” to collect data about Japanese driving, such as left-hand traffic. The vehicles will be manually driven to gather mapping data, and will be managed locally by Nihon Kotsu, a taxi fleet operator. Around 25 vehicles will arrive, the first in early 2025.
While the tests are undoubtedly seen as laying the foundation for a future Tokyo robotaxi service, Waymo has said that it is not ready to announce anything just yet.
“Rather, we are bringing our technology to understand how Waymo can fit into the existing transportation ecosystem and learn how to partner with local officials, communities, and governments.” Waymo has already done this in the US by making its autonomous cars available on Uber’s Ridehail app in Austin, Atlanta and other cities.
We have no plans at this time to serve riders in Tokyo.
Waymo is slowly growing its robotaxi business in the US. The company has 700 vehicles operating in several cities including San Francisco Los Angeles Austin and Phoenix. It also plans to launch an exclusive robotaxi service with Uber in Atlanta and to launch in Miami by 2026. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said recently that Waymo provides 175,000 paid trips each week, or approximately a million miles.
Nihon Kotsu will employ trained autonomous specialists to operate Waymo vehicles in Tokyo. Once the company is ready, it will switch to hands-free driving with a safety operator behind the wheel. Karp would not say if the company will eventually move to fully driverless operations. The vehicles will only be geofenced in certain Tokyo neighborhoods, including Minato Shinjuku Shibuya Chiyoda Chuo Shinagawa Koto.
By bringing its vehicles into its first foreign country Alphabet hopes to project confidence in their technology, particularly at a time where companies are pulling back from costly robotaxi projects. General Motors announced recently that it will no longer fund Cruise, and instead pivot towards driver-assist technologies and personally owned autonomous cars.
While several companies have tested their self-driving vehicles in Japan, the country is still a bit behind China and the US. The auto industry in Japan is testing in other countries than its own. This may be part of the problem. Toyota and Nissan both want to deploy robotaxis with local operators in China.