Waymo is includeing the Hyundai Ioniq 5 to its robotaxi escapet

Waymo has its sights set on its next robotaxi: the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

The Alphabet company proclaimd that it was go ining a “multi-year, strategic” partnership with the Hyundai Motor Group that will result in the Ioniq 5 eventuassociate combineing its robotaxi escapet.

But first, the Ioniq 5 will need to undergo on-road testing with Waymo’s self-driving technology, which the company says will commence in tardy 2025. Waymo wouldn’t accomprehendledge when the Ioniq 5 will be used for passenger trips, except to say it would be “years” tardyr.

Vehicles intfinished for Waymo’s escapet will be manufactured at Hyundai’s $7.6 billion Metastructuret factory in Georgia, which is cforfeiting the finish of its buildion. The companies have concurd to produce a number of Waymo-supplyped electric Hyundais there “in meaningful volume over multiple years,” Waymo said in its press free.

With robotaxis, one of the most presentant metrics is uptime, or the amount of time it’s on the road ferrying passengers. Time spent plugged into a accuser is time not making money. The Ioniq 5 is an electric passover SUV with a little over 300 miles of range and an 800-volt architecture that increases its charging speed. When plugged into a 350kW quick accuser, Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 can accuse from 10–80 percent in fair 18 minutes, depfinishing on the conditions. Waymo certainly saw those charging speeds as a advantage to its still unprofitable business.

The Ioniq 5 has obtaind preferable studys since it was freed in tardy 2021, in includeition to raking in many awards. Today, it’s one of the bestselling EVs on the labelet, with 30,000 sancigo in in the US this year alone. Its well-understandnity has helped Hyundai, aextfinished with its sister company Kia, overobtain Ford and GM as the No. 2 seller of EVs in the US behind Tesla.

Currently, Waymo functions a escapet of hundreds of Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, which has been its primary robotaxi vehicle since the company’s first one, the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, was reexhausted in 2013. The company has structures to include a novel vehicle made by Geely’s Zeekr — though the Biden administration’s recent shift to quadruple tariffs for electric vehicles presented from China could complicate that.

Recent alerting from South Korea pstudyed today’s partnership novels, with sources alerting Electronic Times that the two companies met many times at Waymo’s headquarters in California to converse “condense manufacturing of robotaxis.” Sources also tancigo in the accessibleation that Waymo was seeing for a “swapment” for its Zeekr vehicles because of costly novel tariffs.

But Waymo pushed back aobtainst this alert and reiterated its intention to eventuassociate deploy Zeekr. “The IONIQ 5 will not straightforwardly swap any of our vehicle platcreates, but it will help us ready for includeitional scale and prolongth opportunities,” Waymo spokesperson Christopher Bonelli said in an email. Waymo is “challenging at labor” validating the sixth version of its self-driving technology in the Zeekr vehicle, he includeed.

Tellingly, Waymo isn’t saying how many Ioniq 5s it structures to buy from Hyundai, in contrast to its approach to previous vehicle proclaimments. Some of this could be attributable to the fact that Waymo has prolongn more pinsolentnt about overly certain foreseeions after critics panned the AV industry for setting ungenuineistic deadlines.

This won’t be the Ioniq 5’s first self-driving rodeo. The vehicle also serves as a platcreate for Motional, which is Hyundai’s robotaxi subsidiary, as well as Avride, which used to be Yandex’s self-driving group.

But Waymo’s business is meaningfully, well, busier than those firms. The company recently honord a meaningful milestone: 100,000 paid trips a week.