Waymo Plans To More Than Double Its Self-Driving I-PACE Fleet Within The Next Year

Waymo announced plans to more than double its fleet of self-driving I-PACE electric vehicles by the end of next year.

Today, self-driving market leader Waymo announced its manufacturing expansion plans.

Waymo has been partnering with Magna to integrate its’ Waymo Driver’ into existing vehicles, especially the Jaguar I-PACE electric SUV, which also happens to be built by Magna.

The two companies now operate a 239,000 square-foot factory in Mesa, Arizona.

Ryan McNamara, Vice President of Operations at Waymo, commented on the facility:

“The Waymo Driver integration plant in Mesa is the epicenter of our future growth plans. With our partners at Magna, we’ve opened a manufacturing site that enables the cost efficiency, flexibility, and capacity to scale our fleet to new heights.”

Waymo also plans to build its Waymo Driver in the Zeekr RT this year at the facility, but the goal is still to grow its I-PACE fleet.

The company now confirmed that it plans to add over 2,000 autonomous I-PACE vehicles to its fleet by the end of next year:

Waymo One has grown substantially in the last couple of years. We’ve also incrementally grown our commercial fleet as we’ve welcomed more riders, with over 1,500 vehicles across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. Earlier this year, we received our final delivery from Jaguar, and through next year, we will build over 2,000 more fully autonomous I-PACE vehicles for our fleet.

Waymo is keeping the I-PACE alive by itself.

The electric vehicle has had issues with a battery recall that affected its entire fleet, and the Jaguar brand has been moving away from the vehicle.

Waymo is currently completing over 250,000 autonomous paid rides per week with a fleet of 1,500 vehicles.

The fleet is now expected to grow to over 3,500 vehicles by the end of next year. Waymo currently offers its service in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin, but it plans to expand to several cities within the next year.

Electrek’s Take

This is going to get interesting. Tesla’s Elon Musk kept saying that Waymo is not scalable yet. However, it more than doubled its paid rides within the last year and plans to more than double its fleet within the next year.

Tesla plans to launch a service similar to Waymo in Austin in June, but Musk said that Tesla plans to start with “10-20 vehicles.”

It’s going to be pretty easy to track which service can grow faster.

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