Waymo partners with Chinese automotive company Geely to bring a “rider-first” EV with no steering wheel to its US robotaxi Waymo One fleet in the coming years
Waymo One is Alphabet's Lyft/Uber competitor that's live in Phoenix and currently undergoing testing in San Francisco.
Context & Ripple Effects
Waymo One began as a limited commercial service in Phoenix, following the Early Rider launch of Waymo’s first commercial self-driving taxi service. With Phoenix live and San Francisco testing underway, Waymo is moving from adapting vehicles for autonomous driving toward commissioning a vehicle around the passenger experience.
The partnership also establishes an early marker in Waymo’s vehicle strategy: later coverage describes the Ojai robotaxi vehicle designed with Zeekr for deployment in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
First-order effects
- Waymo gains a vehicle-development partner for a Waymo One model that removes the steering wheel, aligning the cabin and hardware package with driverless service rather than conventional consumer driving.
- Geely gains a direct role in supplying a purpose-built vehicle for Waymo’s U.S. robotaxi fleet.
Second-order effects
- Waymo’s Phoenix operations and San Francisco testing become inputs to vehicle design, shifting part of the deployment challenge from retrofitting cars to integrating the service and vehicle from the outset.
- A dedicated fleet vehicle raises the bar for other robotaxi operators: they must decide whether adapted passenger cars can match a rider experience designed around autonomous operation.
Third-order effects
- If purpose-built vehicles become the norm, robotaxi competition will increasingly depend on tight partnerships between autonomous-driving developers and automakers, rather than on access to off-the-shelf vehicles alone.
- The later Ojai announcement suggests Waymo’s vehicle strategy is evolving into a repeatable model of partnering with automakers for fleet-specific robotaxis.
The trend: Robotaxi operators are shifting from autonomous systems fitted into conventional cars toward purpose-built vehicles designed around driverless fleet service.