- Hyundai Ioniq 5s are one step closer to hitting Waymo’s fleet of robotaxis.
- On Tuesday, the cars started manual on-road testing in San Francisco.
- Waymo currently uses Jaguar I-Paces, but it plans to launch Hyundai and Zeekr vehicles to its driverless fleet.
Your next Waymo could be a Hyundai Ioniq 5. We’ve known for a while now that the popular electric crossover would hit the driverless-car company’s autonomous fleet, and now it’s one step closer.
Waymo has begun manual testing of Ioniq 5s equipped with its sixth-generation autonomous driving technology in San Francisco.
The two companies announced a “strategic partnership” last year and said deploying self-driving Ioniq 5s would be the first step. The cars are built at Hyundai’s new Metaplant in Georgia, then outfitted with Waymo’s driverless hardware and software. That suite of tech includes 13 cameras, four lidar sensors, 6 radars and an array of microphones.
Waymo started out with autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans before phasing those out in favor of the electric Jaguar I-Pace. Now Waymo is getting ready to introduce its next slate of vehicles. (The I-Pace has been discontinued, so the Alphabet-owned firm has to look at alternatives.)
It plans to introduce a custom-built shuttle from Zeekr, a Chinese manufacturer. It’s already been testing those around the country. As Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana explained on the New York Times’s “Hard Fork” podcast, the company envisions having a wide variety of different form factors for different use cases, including the Zeekr, Ioniq 5 and whatever comes next.
“In the future state, we’re going to have tiers of products available,” she said. “There’s going to be people who want the date night experience. That’s going to be different than the people who have the soccer team experience. And so we are thinking about these as product offerings over time.”
In Europe, she noted, Waymo will need a “small vehicle form factor.”
The start of Ioniq 5 testing comes during a time of staggering growth for Waymo. The company now plans to be in at least 12 U.S. cities by the end of 2026, with San Diego, Las Vegas and Detroit the latest to be announced.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
