Waymo Ojai self-driving vehicles in San Francisco. (Jason Henry/Bloomberg)
key takeaways:
- Waymo registered Waymo Germany GmbH on June 15 to provide autonomous ride-hailing services, listing Google’s Munich office as its address.
- The move advances Waymo’s global expansion plans beyond the US, where it says it offers 500,000 autonomous trips weekly in 11 cities.
- Waymo said it is involving authorities around the world, while any launch in Germany would likely follow supervised mapping, employee testing and regulatory groundwork.
Waymo plans to offer its driverless robotaxis in Germany, the latest move by the Alphabet Inc. unit to expand outside the US.
The company has registered a local entity called Waymo Germany GmbH that will “provide ride-hailing services with autonomous vehicles and provide services that support the commercial offering of such services by third parties,” according to the company registration filing. The details were first reported by German news outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
There is no indication that the service will launch any time soon. Waymo filed paperwork last month and registered the entity on June 15, listing its business address as Google’s Munich office.
Germany, an automotive hub, has been a testing ground for robotaxi companies from around the world, including United Kingdom startup Wave Technologies and Chinese players such as Baidu Inc and Beijing Momenta Technology Co. Earlier this month, Uber Technologies announced that it had partnered with Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI company AutoBrains Technologies to finally launch robotaxis in Munich.
Before launching into any market, Waymo typically deploys a small fleet of human-supervised vehicles to map new environments to train the company’s self-driving software. That process can take months, if not years, though Waymo’s recent launch in the U.S. market has shortened that timeline, where regulations permit. Still, before widely rolling out autonomous rides to the public, Waymo often offers them to employees first to get and incorporate feedback.
“Waymo has global ambitions, with plans already underway to bring our fully autonomous ride-hailing service to London and Tokyo,” a Waymo spokesperson said in response to Bloomberg questions about the filing in Germany. “We are in talks with authorities around the world to explain our technology and lay the groundwork for global operations.”
Waymo is the leading robotaxi service provider in the US, driving more than 500,000 autonomous trips per week in 11 cities. It has set its sights on 21 more companies domestically and globally.
