Waymo announced on August 19 that rides in its next-generation Ojai robotaxi are now open to all users in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix2. The rollout marks the first broad public deployment of a vehicle built on a Chinese-manufactured EV platform in the U.S. autonomous vehicle market.
The Ojai is built on an electric vehicle supplied by Zeekr, a Chinese automaker owned by Geely. Waymo first began offering Ojai rides to select users in May, following months of employee testing.
The vehicle runs on Waymo's sixth-generation autonomous driving system, which the company says uses fewer and more affordable components and is designed to handle a wider range of environments than its predecessor. Waymo's existing fleet of Jaguar I-Pace EVs still operates on the company's fifth-generation system.
The Ojai offers a roomier interior than the I-Pace and includes three Gemini-powered touchscreen displays that let passengers control music and temperature. The I-Pace, which Jaguar discontinued in 2024, is being phased out; Waymo received its final delivery of those vehicles last year.
Waymo navigates the Ojai's Chinese supply chain by importing stripped-down, disconnected versions of the Zeekr vehicles — without sensors, computers, or autonomous driving technology — and installing its own U.S.-developed autonomy stack at its factory in Mesa, Arizona. Chinese-made EVs currently face a 100% tariff on top of other import duties, and the Commerce Department has placed restrictions on Chinese and Russian-connected car tech1.
Forbes reported earlier in August that more than 3,200 Zeekr vehicles have been shipped to the U.S. since 2024. Electrek reported last week that more than 600 finished Ojai robotaxis were staged outside Waymo's Arizona facility and appeared ready for deployment. A TechCrunch spokesperson said Waymo currently has about 300 Ojai robotaxis in its commercial fleet.
Waymo plans to bring the Ojai to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego later this year. The company also plans to expand its fleet with Hyundai Ioniq 5 SUVs equipped with its autonomous driving technology.
ANALYSIS The staged inventory of 600-plus vehicles against a current commercial fleet of roughly 300 suggests Waymo is positioned for a rapid scaling phase across its announced expansion cities. The decision to strip Chinese-origin vehicles of all connected technology before importing them, then retrofit U.S.-developed autonomy hardware in Arizona, appears designed to thread the gap between tariff exposure and Commerce Department restrictions on foreign-connected car tech. The Ojai deployment lands days after Amazon's Zoox expanded its driverless service to San Francisco and Las Vegas ctx, placing Waymo's fleet expansion against a shifting competitive backdrop in the U.S. robotaxi market.