Moderation Team
Waymo Ojai self-driving vehicles in San Francisco. (Jason Henry/Bloomberg)
Key Takeaways:
- Waymo registered Waymo Germany GmbH on June 15 to offer autonomous ride-hailing services, listing Google’s Munich office as its address.
- The move extends Waymo’s global expansion plans beyond the U.S., where it says it provides 500,000 autonomous trips weekly across 11 cities.
- Waymo said it is engaging officials worldwide, while any Germany launch would likely follow supervised mapping, employee testing and regulatory groundwork.
Waymo is planning to offer its driverless robotaxis in Germany, the latest move by the Alphabet Inc. unit to expand outside the U.S.
The company registered a local entity called Waymo Germany GmbH that will “offer ride-hailing services with autonomous vehicles and provide services that support the commercial offering of such services by third parties,” according to a company registration filing. The details were reported earlier by German news outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
There is no indication that the service will start imminently. Waymo entered the paperwork last month and registered the entity June 15, listing its business address as Google’s Munich office.
Germany, an automotive hub, has been a testing ground for robotaxi companies around the world, including United Kingdom startup Wayve Technologies and Chinese players like Baidu Inc. and Beijing Momenta Technology Co. Earlier this month, Uber Technologies announced it has partnered with Tel Aviv, Israel-based AI company Autobrains Technologies to eventually launch robotaxis in Munich.
Before any market launch, Waymo usually deploys a small fleet of human-supervised vehicles to map out new surroundings to train the company’s self-driving software. That process may take months if not years, though the timeline has been shortened for Waymo’s recent U.S. market launches where regulations are permissive. Still, before rolling out autonomous rides broadly to the public, Waymo often offers them first to employees to gain 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’s questions about the filing in Germany. “We are engaging with officials around the world to explain our technology and lay the groundwork for global operations.”
Waymo is the leading robotaxi service provider in the U.S., accounting for more than 500,000 autonomous trips per week across 11 cities. It has set its eyes on 21 more domestically and globally.
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