Toyota will manufacture Waymo robotaxis as the two companies deepen their partnership, with production of the 2027 bZ4X equipped with Waymo’s autonomous system set to begin at Toyota’s Takaoka factory. Testing starts in Japan next year, and the vehicles are intended for other right-hand-drive markets, including the United Kingdom.
The factory-built Waymo robotaxi
Until now, robotaxis have mostly been conventional cars retrofitted with sensors and computers by specialist teams, an approach that is slow and expensive. Building the autonomous system into vehicles on a Toyota production line is a different model entirely: it promises volume, consistency and the quality control of the world’s largest carmaker. For Waymo, it also opens markets where it does not yet operate. Readers who follow our technology pages will know how quickly the driverless race has shifted from experiments to industrial scale.
Why Japan and the UK
Both countries drive on the left, and both have regulators actively working through the rules for driverless services. Japan is also Toyota’s home market, where an ageing population and a shortage of taxi drivers in rural areas make autonomous transport a policy priority as much as a commercial one. As the AI news digest notes, the first vehicles will be tested in Japan next year before any public service launches.
The bigger race
Waymo’s deal with Toyota lands in a crowded field. Tesla is pushing its own robotaxi ambitions, Chinese firms are expanding abroad, and ride-hailing platforms are signing partnerships to make sure they are not left behind. What distinguishes this agreement is the combination of a mature autonomous system with a manufacturer that can build cars by the million.
If the Takaoka-built vehicles perform as hoped, the partnership could mark the moment robotaxis stopped being a Silicon Valley curiosity and became a product of the mainstream car industry, built on the same lines as the family cars beside them.
