Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous vehicle division, opened its sixth-generation robotaxi, the Ojai, to all passengers in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco on August 19, according to TechCrunch. The company currently operates around 300 Ojai units in its commercial fleet, the first model purpose-built for driverless transportation service.
The move is part of Waymo's strategy to gradually replace the Jaguar I-Pace fleet it currently operates across 11 U.S. cities with a vehicle that is cheaper to manufacture, operate, and maintain. Infobae reported that the Ojai is an electric minivan produced by Zeekr, a brand within China's Geely Group, built on the SEA-M platform and equipped with Waymo's sixth-generation autonomous driving system and Google's Gemini AI assistant on board. For Mexico and Latin America, the case functions as an external benchmark, illustrating how quickly a mobility technology can move from trial to everyday use, a useful parameter for designing autonomous vehicle regulatory frameworks in the region.
Analysis firm MoffettNathanson estimated that Waymo will import approximately 5,000 Ojai units into the United States by the end of 2026, more than double its current Jaguar fleet. In July alone, 725 units entered the country. Before the end of 2026, the robotaxi will expand to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego. The SF Chronicle noted that the Ojai features flat floors that accommodate wheelchairs, wide doors, and higher-resolution sensors with fewer cameras, and that the company itself compared its interior to a modern living room. Manufacturing in China also faces import tariffs that raise the cost of each unit brought into the country.
The rollout to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego will mark the next milestone before the close of 2026, and the import pace tracked by MoffettNathanson projects a scaling curve that the region can read as a reference point for its autonomous mobility frameworks. The figure to watch: how a fleet grows from 300 to 5,000 units in a single year.
This article was written with AI assistance based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.