The Waymo Toyota bZ4X robotaxi fleet will begin testing in Japan in 2027, with deployment to the United Kingdom and other Waymo markets planned for the following years. Waymo and Toyota call it the next phase of a partnership that was still only a preliminary agreement in April 2025.
Toyota will build the vehicles at its Takaoka plant in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. The companies say the whole process will take place under one roof, from assembling the base bZ4X to integrating Waymo's autonomous-driving hardware. They call the partnership a major milestone in expanding Japan's first fully autonomous ride-hailing service with high-volume vehicles made in Japan.
In 2025 the two aimed to develop a new autonomous vehicle platform and to explore Waymo technology for next-generation personally owned Toyotas, with Woven by Toyota as a strategic enabler and the scope left to evolve through further talks. The new plan names a vehicle, a factory and a first year of testing.
The companies say the custom-outfitted bZ4X is designed for comfort and accessibility, with generous rear legroom and features such as automatic doors, a power liftgate and ambient lighting. They will keep exploring autonomous technology for personally owned Toyota vehicles, and with Woven by Toyota they will explore how insights from Waymo's real-world operations could improve safety for other road users.
Dmitri Dolgov, Waymo's co-CEO, said the company has shown it is up to 20x safer than human drivers for serious crash injuries in the areas where it operates. Waymo's safety data points the same way: it compares the Waymo Driver with an average human driver over the same distance in Waymo's operating cities and shows 95% fewer crashes with serious injuries or worse, 55 fewer in absolute terms. A 95% reduction is a twentyfold difference. Those figures come from cities where Waymo already runs its service, so they do not yet cover the Waymo Toyota bZ4X on Japanese or British roads.
Hiroki Nakajima, a Toyota board member and executive vice president, said Toyota will also explore, in parallel with the Waymo work, how integrating vehicles with traffic infrastructure can make roads safer.
