A Waymo self-driving car stands in front of Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday, February 3, 2026.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Waymo announced Thursday that it has begun using a sixth-generation driverless system to provide robotaxis to employees in its Ojai fleet, which uses a base model made by Chinese automaker Geely Automobile.
Waymo aims to expand its lead in the U.S. and lock in loyal passengers by upgrading its driverless technology and adding more vehicles to its fleet. of alphabetThe company that owns it said the sixth-generation Waymo driver uses more cost-effective parts and should be able to navigate in harsher weather conditions than previous generations.
Satish Jeyachandran, Waymo’s vice president of engineering, said in a statement that the new system “will be a key driver of our next era of expansion.”
Waymo will initially offer Ojai vehicle service to employees and their guests in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, with the goal of gradually expanding to new cities and opening to the general public later this year.
The introduction of Waymo’s next-generation robotaxis comes as the company pushes to expand its lead in the United States while testing and planning commercial operations overseas.
Waymo already offers fully autonomous robotaxis services in six U.S. markets and plans to launch in London later this year. As a potential rival, AmazonOwned Zoox and teslais testing driverless systems in the United States, but driverless ride-hailing services are not widely available yet.
Chinese robotaxi companies such as Baidu-owned Apollo Go and WeRide are expanding overseas at a faster pace than Waymo. Goldman Sachs estimated last May that the global market for autonomous ride-hailing has huge potential, likely to be worth more than $25 billion by 2030.
Waymo’s decision to use Chinese electric vehicles in its U.S. fleet has raised concerns among Republican lawmakers.
“We’re in competition with China, and it looks like we’re in bed with China,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) told Waymo’s safety chief during a committee hearing last week.
Spokesperson Sandy Karp told CNBC that Waymo will not provide G’Car with “access to confidential self-driving technology, sensor data or passenger information.” Chinese automaker of Yoricho Company will be responsible for providing “base vehicle”, Waymo will equip American cars with self-driving technology
The company’s 6th generation system also works with robotaxis built on the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Waymo’s current Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will continue to run on the 5th generation system.
“We have consistently operated a mixed fleet for many years, including when we transitioned from Pacifica 4th generation drivers to I-PACE 5th generation drivers,” Karp said in an email.
Ojai is a boxier vehicle with lower steps and higher ceilings than Waymo’s existing robotaxis, but with about the same footprint as a Jaguar I-PACE.
Alphabet’s “Other Bets” division, which includes Waymo, reported a loss of $7.51 billion in 2025, up from $4.44 billion in 2024. Last week, Waymo announced it had raised $16 billion in a funding round led by Alphabet that valued the company at $126 billion.
Waymo’s robotaxi service currently operates in the Austin, San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Miami markets and launched in January. The company plans to launch in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, and Washington in 2026. The company also plans to expand into London, its first international market.
As its business expands, Waymo’s vehicles will need to be able to handle more severe weather conditions, especially in cities in the Northeast.
The company has been testing the sixth-generation system on public roads since it was first announced in 2024. The new system has better visibility than the previous system due to upgraded lidar and radar systems, the company said.
“Our 6th generation LIDAR takes advantage of the significant cost reductions the industry has seen over the past five years, especially as more affordable LIDARs become available in consumer vehicles,” said Jeyachandran.
The next-generation 17-megapixel imager, which the company calls a “breakthrough in automotive vision technology,” allows the system to see around the vehicle with fewer cameras. New in-house algorithms will help improve performance in rain and snow, Jeyachandran added.
“A reliable vision system must itself remain clear even in adverse weather conditions,” says Jeyachandran. “Traditional car cameras can struggle with raindrops, road grime, and ice, but our system has an integrated cleaning system to maintain visibility.”
