Waymo launches services with cheaper robotaxis in Los Angeles

Waymo is rolling out a new driverless taxi to help the company expand into more cities and tackle tougher driving conditions, including snowy roads, the company announced Wednesday.

The new vehicle, dubbed the Ojai, will begin serving select customers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix in the coming weeks. Rides will be free of charge as the company gathers feedback.

The Ojai has sliding doors and offers riders more legroom, three screens and accessibility features such as Braille. The minivan-like taxi can carry four passengers and also has more cargo space than its current vehicles.

Waymo is launching around 100 Ojai vehicles and plans to ramp up production to supplement its fleet of Jaguar I-Pace taxis, which shuttle customers around in more than 10 cities.

Waymo’s new autonomous vehicle, called the Ojai. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The company plans to eventually have tens of thousands of driverless taxis made per year, starting with the Ojai, then scaling using retrofitted Hyundai IONIQ 5s.

The Ojai is manufactured for Waymo by Zeekr, a Chinese automobile company.

Though it appears bulkier than the I-Pace, the Ojai is only 1% larger, the company said.

The Ojai could pave the way for Waymo to expand more rapidly at a lower price, as it costs less to manufacture and outfit than the I-Pace. The company says the new robotaxis have better batteries and are easier to clean and maintain than their predecessors.

The new vehicle also uses self-driving technology more efficiently, the company said, relying on 13 cameras, five lidars and six radar sensors. The I-Pace taxis have 29 cameras.

Waymo’s sixth-generation “Waymo Driver” system will debut in the Ojai, designed to better handle snowy conditions and other driving situations. .

Last week, Waymo suspended its service on U.S. freeways due to safety concerns, particularly regarding flooded roads and construction zones. The company recalled more than 3,000 vehicles in April after several vehicles drove into standing water. The sixth-generation driver aims to fix those bugs.

Waymo is a privately held company owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. It is leading the race to put more driverless taxis on the road, pulling ahead of Amazon’s Zoox, Elon Musk’s Tesla and a handful of efforts from Uber.

Waymo taxis have completed more than 20 million fully autonomous trips in cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Nashville.