TL;DR
Waymo has opened its sixth-generation Ojai robotaxi to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Built by Geely’s Zeekr in China, the Ojai cuts sensor count by 42% and costs roughly $75,000 less per unit than the Jaguar I-PACE it replaces.
Waymo has started offering rides to select passengers in its new Ojai robotaxi, the first vehicle purpose-built for autonomous ride-hailing rather than retrofitted from an existing car. The Ojai runs on Waymo’s sixth-generation Driver system and is built on a platform manufactured by Zeekr, the electric vehicle brand owned by China’s Geely, the same conglomerate that owns Volvo. Rides are initially available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, with San Diego, Las Vegas, and Denver expected to follow this summer.
The Ojai replaces the Jaguar I-PACE that has served as Waymo’s primary robotaxi since 2020. It is a boxier, roomier vehicle with a lower step-in height, a higher ceiling, and a removable steering wheel. The interior is designed for passengers rather than drivers, reflecting the fact that nobody is supposed to sit behind the wheel.
Fewer sensors, lower cost
The most significant change is economic. The Ojai uses 13 cameras, four lidar units, and six radar sensors, a 42% reduction in total sensor count compared with the 29 cameras on the fifth-generation I-PACE fleet. Waymo has compensated for the smaller number of sensors by upgrading their quality. The system uses a new 17-megapixel imager that the company says delivers sharper images with better thermal stability, providing an overlapping 360-degree field of view that can identify objects up to 500 metres away in darkness.
The improved lidar can see through heavy rain and snow, and upgraded audio receivers can better detect sirens and other sounds, addressing conditions that previously forced Waymo to suspend service in several cities. Earlier this month, Waymo paused operations in five US cities after a software patch failed to prevent vehicles from driving into standing water.
Morgan Stanley has estimated the Ojai costs roughly $125,000 per unit, compared with approximately $200,000 for the I-PACE. The base vehicle built by Zeekr reportedly costs around $38,000, compared with $75,000 for the Jaguar, and the sixth-generation Driver hardware is expected to cost less than $20,000 per unit, more than a 50% reduction from the previous generation. Waymo plans to have thousands of Ojai vehicles on the road by the end of the year.
The China question
The Ojai’s reliance on Chinese manufacturing has drawn political scrutiny. Zeekr builds the base vehicles at a factory in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, and ships them to Mesa, Arizona, where Waymo fits its autonomous driving hardware. The arrangement subjects the imports to a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles, but because Waymo imports stripped-down bodies rather than finished consumer vehicles, the tariff applies to a lower base value of roughly $10,000 to $20,000 per unit, making the cost manageable.
A US senator has publicly questioned the arrangement, and the federal government is tightening restrictions on connected vehicle software from China. The broader autonomous vehicle market is watching closely to see whether geopolitical tensions force Waymo to find a domestic manufacturing partner or whether the tariff structure remains favourable enough to keep the Chinese supply chain intact.
Scale is the strategy
Waymo now delivers more than 500,000 paid rides per week across 10 US metro areas, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando. The company is targeting one million weekly rides by the end of 2026 and is laying groundwork for operations in more than 20 additional cities, including international markets like Tokyo and London.
The expansion is backed by a $16 billion funding round completed in February 2026, valuing the company at $110 billion, more than double its $45 billion valuation from 15 months earlier. Alphabet provided roughly $13 billion of the total, with Sequoia Capital, Dragoneer, and DST Global among the external investors. Waymo generates an estimated $350 million in annual recurring revenue and operates at Level 4 autonomy, meaning the vehicle handles all driving tasks in defined conditions without human intervention.
The competitive landscape
Waymo’s lead in commercial robotaxi operations is substantial but not unchallenged. Tesla launched a limited robotaxi service in Austin, relying on cameras alone without lidar, a fundamentally different and cheaper approach that other autonomous vehicle makers have criticised as less safe. Amazon’s Zoox operates roughly 50 robotaxis in San Francisco and Las Vegas and will launch on the Uber app in Las Vegas this summer. Cruise, once Waymo’s closest competitor, suspended operations in 2023 after a pedestrian incident and has been slow to return.
In China, Baidu’s Apollo platform operates commercial robotaxi services in multiple cities. Europe remains largely without robotaxi services, though Waymo’s planned expansion to London would mark the first entry by a major US operator.
The Ojai is Waymo’s answer to the fundamental business problem of autonomous ride-hailing: the vehicles have always been too expensive to scale profitably. A cheaper, purpose-built robotaxi with fewer sensors and better software is the company’s bet that it can turn a technology demonstration into a transport business. Whether the economics work will depend on how quickly it can deploy thousands of Ojai vehicles and whether riders in new cities adopt the service at the same rate as early markets.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
