Waymo just put its newest, cheapest robotaxi on the road. It's called the Ojai, it's made in China by Geely, and it costs a lot less to build than the Jaguars Waymo has been using until now, with cheaper cars being the only way to scale a robotaxi business fast enough to keep Tesla and Amazon's Zoox in the rearview mirror.
The Ojai is the first vehicle running on the sixth-generation Waymo Driver, the company's own driving system, and it uses custom Waymo chips along with better lidar that can see through heavy rain and snow. The audio gear is also better at picking up sirens and other road noises. The cabin is roomier than the old Jaguar I-PACE robotaxis, the doors open and close on their own, and the steering wheel is removable.
The real news for investors is on the cost side. Geely builds the Ojai, and it uses fewer cameras and sensors than the I-PACE, with both changes shrinking the price per car. Building a robotaxi business is a capital-intensive sport, and the team that gets unit costs down first usually wins.
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Waymo already has 100 Ojai vehicles on the road inside its nearly 4,000-car fleet, and Ryan Powell, the company's head of design, told CNBC the plan is to have thousands of Ojai cars rolling by year-end.
Riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix can hail one starting now, with San Diego, Las Vegas, and Denver coming online this summer. Waymo also plans to start service in London later this year, its first market outside North America.
Powell said the company has done over 20 million autonomous rides total and is targeting 1 million weekly trips by the end of 2026, putting pressure on rivals like Pony AI, which just posted 400% revenue growth.
Alphabet and other backers handed Waymo a $16 billion cash infusion in February at a $126 billion valuation, which buys a lot of runway, though the business still has to prove it can scale profitably.
It hasn't all been smooth. Earlier this month, Waymo recalled about 3,800 robotaxis to fix a software bug that was letting them drive into flooded roads, and last week the company temporarily paused freeway rides after spotting issues with how its cars handle construction zones.
Powell hinted at the next chapter: Waymo is exploring "natural" ways to talk to the car using Google's Gemini AI, like telling the car to "move up a little further" and having it actually do it.
Whether Waymo hits 1 million weekly trips by year-end is the metric that matters, and the Ojai is the lever that has to make it possible. Lower cost per car, more cars on the road, fewer recalls in between.
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