Waymo and Toyota to Launch a Robotaxi Based on the bZ4X

Toyota and Waymo (the self-driving car company owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company) are working together on a driverless taxi. It is an electric Toyota bZ4X fitted with Waymo's autonomous driving technology, plus automatic doors and an electric rear hatch. The whole vehicle is built at a single Toyota plant, in Takaoka, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The service will start running in Japan in 2027. It will be Japan's first mass-produced, fully autonomous taxi service. After that, the service will roll out in the UK and other countries where Waymo already operates.

This is a big step forward from where things stand today, which is mostly a handful of demo vehicles built in small numbers. We are seeing the same shift here that we saw with AI agents taking over office work, except now it is happening with driving. How fast this spreads will depend a lot on how quickly local authorities and regulators allow these cars on public roads.