Alphabet’s Waymo Expands Beyond US to the World’s Most Populous City

Waymo’s self-driving cars are taking a “road trip” to Japan, according to the Alphabet (GOOGL)-owned venture. The company’s electric Jaguar I-Pace vehicles will hit the busy roads in Tokyo, a city of 13 million residents, in early 2025 as Waymo experiments with autonomous driving beyond the U.S.

The robotaxi company currently operates a fleet of some 700 vehicles in a handful of American cities but has yet to launch any official commercial operations outside of the country. Laying the groundwork for a potential international expansion, its upcoming work in Japan will allow the company to “evaluate how our A.I.-powered driver generalizes to new environments through simulation,” said Waymo in a statement.

Waymo will be partnering with the taxi app GO and Nihon Kotsu, Tokyo’s largest taxi company, as it tests out its vehicles in the Japanese capital. For now, the collaboration’s early stages will see Nihon Kotsu drivers manually operate Waymo vehicles to map Tokyo’s key areas like Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chūō, Shinagawa and Kōtō to train the self-driving company’s A.I. systems on the city’s dense urban environment.

The overseas excursion, which also marks Waymo’s first foray into left-hand traffic, signals the company’s interest in one day offering rides to the Japanese public. Japan’s aging population provides room for much-needed traffic solutions, with the Japanese government eyeing self-driving cars as a potential way to bolster road safety for the world’s most elderly population.

Founded 15 years ago as a self-driving project within Google (GOOGL), Waymo became an independent Alphabet subsidiary in 2016 and launched its first self-driving service the following year in Phoenix, Ariz. Having since expanded to cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, it plans to bring its cars to Miami next year. Waymo also recently partnered with Uber (UBER) in a collaboration that will expand its autonomous service to Atlanta and Austin in early 2025.

Waymo’s expansion into Japan “aligns with the country’s vision for the future of transportation,” according to the company, which said it will tap Japanese policymakers, regulators and local safety officials as it deploys its autonomous vehicles across Tokyo.

Although Japan’s self-driving ecosystem has historically seen less movement than markets in the U.S. and China, the nation’s robotaxi vision is picking up steam. Earlier this year, the Japanese government unveiled plans to allow autonomous driving services on at least 25 public road routes by next spring, with plans to later expand this figure to 100 routes.

Some of Japan’s largest self-driving players include the startup Tier IV, which began operating a self-driving taxi service in Tokyo last month and is currently developing a new autonomous vehicle that can fit an entire family. Backed by Japanese investors like SoftBank (SFTBF) and Toyota, Monet Technologies earlier this year announced plans to launch an autonomous taxi service in parts of Tokyo, while the self-driving venture Turing is hoping to roll out 10,000 self-driving cars by the end of the decade.