Waymo and Toyota to Test Driverless bZ4X in Japan

Waymo and Toyota will begin testing a fleet of driverless Toyota bZ4X electric SUVs in Japan in 2027, the companies said on 30 October. In a joint announcement published on Waymo’s blog and Toyota’s global newsroom, they said the “initial operations to test and validate” the fleet in Japan would be followed by “deployment to the United Kingdom and other Waymo-serviced markets planned for the following years”.

The deal moves on from a preliminary agreement the two companies announced in April 2025. They describe the project as a major step towards “Japan’s first fully autonomous ride-hailing service using high-volume, domestically manufactured vehicles”.

The companies did not say how many vehicles will be in the first fleet, which Japanese city or region it will run in, or in which month of 2027 testing will start. They gave no financial terms and no date for the UK beyond “the following years”. Reuters reported that Toyota executive vice president Hiroki Nakajima told a briefing the initial operations would involve a small number of vehicles, without giving a figure.

Built on one line at Takaoka

Toyota will build the vehicles at its Takaoka plant in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. The release says “the entire process will take place under one roof, from assembling the base vehicle to integrating Waymo’s AV hardware”. The companies call the result “safety-validated Level 4 autonomous vehicles”, meaning cars that drive themselves without a human driver within a defined area.

The bZ4X is being fitted out for ride-hailing. The companies list generous rear legroom, automatic doors, a power liftgate and ambient lighting, which they say are meant to make getting in and out easier. They present accessibility as an aim: “opening up freedom of movement for those who can’t easily get around”.

The partnership also goes beyond robotaxis. Toyota and Waymo said they will keep exploring autonomous driving for personally owned Toyota cars. With Woven by Toyota, the group’s software arm, they will also look at how data from Waymo’s operations could improve safety for other road users. They gave no timetable for either.

Waymo’s safety claim

Waymo co-chief executive Dmitri Dolgov made the safety case in the release. “In areas where Waymo operates, we’ve demonstrated that we are up to 20x safer than human drivers when it comes to serious crash injuries,” he said. That figure is Waymo’s own claim about the places it already runs, not a measurement in Japan, and the release does not set out how it was calculated. Dolgov added: “We chose Toyota because of our respect for the legendary safety, reliability, and quality of their vehicles.”

Nakajima, a member of Toyota’s board, said: “No single company can achieve the goal of zero traffic accidents alone, but with partners like Waymo, we will get there one step at a time.”

According to Reuters, Dolgov said: “We’ll start with the right-hand drive markets in Japan and the UK.” He added that “we don’t have any other countries or timelines or specifics to share”. Reuters also reported that Waymo is testing Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in Japan and still plans a pilot with them in 2027.

Right-hand drive and a factory line: why Toyota matters to Waymo

The most concrete part of this announcement is where the cars will come from, not when riders can use them. Waymo’s growth this month has been about places: it opened rides to everyone in San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa, named Toronto as its first Canadian city and said it is coming to the Madrid region in 2027. Each of those needs vehicles, and a carmaker installing Waymo’s hardware on its own production line is a different supply route from fitting kits to finished cars.

Dolgov’s remark explains why Japan and the UK come first. Both drive on the left, so cars there have the steering wheel on the right. A right-hand-drive bZ4X built in Japan could serve both markets. That is TSN’s reading of the companies’ comments, not something they set out in detail.

Scale is still unknown. Semafor has reported that Waymo plans a fleet of about 20,000 by the end of 2027, citing people familiar with the matter; Waymo declined to comment. The Toyota release gives no volume for Takaoka, and Reuters says the first Japanese fleet will be small. Until the companies name a city, a fleet size and a regulatory path, the 2027 date is a start for testing, not a commercial service.

The UK angle

For UK readers, the release puts the United Kingdom first in line after Japan, but with no year. Others are also aiming at London. Baidu and Freenow have shown the RT6 robotaxi there with a 2027 target, and Pony.ai and Uber plan testing in the city. Toyota’s bZ4X now joins the list of vehicles that could carry Waymo’s system on British roads, but the companies have named no UK city, partner or date.

The next detail to watch is the city: neither company has yet said where in Japan the first bZ4X fleet will run, or how many cars it will have.