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Waymo kicks off initial tests in Japan with launch event
Waymo launches early tests in Japan, as Tesla and others look to roll out their own commercial robotaxi services.
Commercial robotaxi company Waymo held a launch event in Japan last week, as the company prepares to enter early manual testing on its first international roads.
After Waymo shared plans to start testing vehicles in Japan in December, the Google-owned firm detailed the launch event in a press release on Monday. The event featured officials from project partners GO, a taxi platform, and Nihon Kotsu, the largest taxi company in Tokyo, along with featuring one of the company’s camera-, lidar-, and radar-outfitted Jaguar I-Pace units, expected to begin manual testing around Tokyo in the weeks to come.
Ichiro Kawanabe, Board Director at Nihon Kotsu and Chairman at both GO and the Japan Taxi Association, said that Waymo’s U.S. operations “demonstrated significant safety benefits,” along with thanking the company for hosting the event at the newly developed Takanawa Gateway City complex.
“I took my first ride with Waymo in Phoenix a year and a half ago and was amazed that there was really no one in the driver’s seat,” the chairman said. “That was the moment I was convinced that autonomous driving technology could absolutely benefit Japan. It will help ensure mobility service in the future of Japan, with the growing aging population and labor shortage.”
Credit: Waymo
Credit: Waymo
This spring, Nihon Kotsu taxi operators will start driving Waymo vehicles across several Tokyo wards this spring, including Chiyoda, Chūō, Kōtō, Minato, Shibuya, Shinagawa, and Shinjuku. The tests will utilize 3D maps of the city, along with utilizing experienced drivers to generate data about traffic laws, patterns, and other road systems ahead of fully autonomous operation.
“After months of strong collaboration with Nihon Kotsu and GO, Waymo has reached a historic milestone— our first venture on international public roads,” said Nicole Gavel, Waymo Senior Director and Head of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships.
“Our partnership demonstrates how Waymo’s 15 years of operational expertise can adapt to new environments through strategic initiatives with industry leaders,” Gavel adds. “In Tokyo, we are abiding by the same steadfast principles that guide us in the U.S. — commitment to safety, dedication to earning trust in communities where we operate, and collaboration with local officials and community groups here in Tokyo.”
The news comes as Tesla, Amazon-owned firm Zoox, and still others are racing to enter the commercial robotaxi business throughout this year. It also comes amidst widespread speculation and debate about the emerging market, and as Tesla and Waymo both aim to begin operations internationally.
READ MORE ON WAYMO: Waymo study analyzes collisions with vulnerable road users
Tesla’s FSD in China, Mexico, commercial robotaxis still incoming
Waymo is already operating paid autonomous ride-hailing services around the U.S., and it said in December that it was giving more than 200,000 autonomous rides per week.
The company currently offers Waymo services in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and, through a partnership with Uber, in Austin, Texas, where Tesla has a Gigafactory and plans to launch initial robotaxi services. The Alphabet-owned company is also aiming to launch services in Atlanta, Georgia and Miami, Florida this year, alongside its early tests in Tokyo.
Although Tesla doesn’t currently operate driverless ride-hailing in any capacity, individual owners in North America can purchase or subscribe to its Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, on which the company’s forthcoming robotaxi platform will be based. In October, the company unveiled the two-seat Cybercab vehicle, which has no steering wheel or pedals and will be used for the upcoming commercial robotaxi system.
Additionally, the company is aiming to launch its first unsupervised rides commercially in Austin in June, and it recently debuted Supervised FSD in China and Mexico, marking the company’s first international markets.
🎥: Our FULL first ride in the @Tesla Cybercab pic.twitter.com/6gR7OgKRCz
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 11, 2024
Waymo vs. Tesla vs. the competition
While Tesla hasn’t quite gotten a commercial robotaxi service to market yet, Waymo, Amazon-owned company Zoox, and still many others have begun their own paid ride-hailing services or early tests. Meanwhile, Tesla’s approach to the technology is vastly different than that of Waymo and others, utilizing a camera-only, AI-trained neural network system, rather than 3D geomapping.
For one, the company can generate a larger pool of training data from real-time driving behavior of its individual owners, for instance as compared to Waymo’s use of a more-limited fleet of taxi drivers. Many argue that this, along with the cost-effectiveness of producing a system that’s built into every vehicle and utilizes only cameras, make the system more scalable than those of Waymo and others.
Still, some support the use of more than just camera systems and building in sensor redundancy as a way to maximize safety, especially as the technologies are still fairly new. Former Waymo CEO John Krafcik, who was a part of the company until 2021, criticized the FSD system in December for not including enough safety measures to support a realistic commercial robotaxi business, and he went on to call Tesla “a car company with a driver-assist system.”
“If a company were serious about building a safe and accessible robotaxi business, it would look nothing like what was shown,” Krafcik said during an interview. “The cost of a robust sensor set, including lidar, is trivial on a per-mile basis. Even more so for mapping. And the safety benefits measured in human harm reduction are real and verifiable.”
Waymo valued at over $45 billion following latest financing round: report
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet,” BoA wrote.
Tesla received a tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm Bank of America on Wednesday, as it reinitiated coverage on Tesla shares with a bullish stance that comes with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $460 price target.
In a new note that marks a sharp reversal from its neutral position earlier in 2025, the bank declared Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology the “leading consumer autonomy solution.”
Analysts highlighted Tesla’s camera-only architecture, known as Tesla Vision, as a strategic masterstroke. While technically more challenging than the multi-sensor setups favored by rivals, the vision-based approach is dramatically cheaper to produce and maintain.
This cost edge, combined with Tesla’s rapidly expanding real-world data engine, positions the company to scale robotaxis far more profitably than competitors, BofA argues in the new note:
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet.”
The bank now attributes roughly 52% of Tesla’s total valuation to its Robotaxi ambitions. It also flagged meaningful upside from the Optimus humanoid robot program and the fast-growing energy storage business, suggesting the auto segment’s recent headwinds, including expired incentives, are being eclipsed by these higher-margin opportunities.
Tesla’s own data underscores exactly why Wall Street is waking up to FSD’s potential. According to Tesla’s official safety reporting page, the FSD Supervised fleet has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles driven.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
That total ballooned from just 6 million miles in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and a staggering 4.25 billion in 2025 alone. In the first 50 days of 2026, owners added another 1 billion miles — averaging more than 20 million miles per day.
This avalanche of real-world, camera-captured footage, much of it on complex city streets, gives Tesla an unmatched training dataset. Every mile feeds its neural networks, accelerating improvement cycles that lidar-dependent rivals simply cannot match at scale.
Tesla owners themselves will tell you the suite gets better with every release, bringing new features and improvements to its self-driving project.
The $460 target implies roughly 15 percent upside from recent trading levels around $400. While regulatory and safety hurdles remain, BofA’s endorsement signals growing institutional conviction that Tesla’s data advantage is not hype; it’s a tangible moat already delivering billions of miles of proof.
News
Tesla to discuss expansion of Samsung AI6 production plans: report
Tesla has reportedly requested an additional 24,000 wafers per month, which would bring total production capacity to around 40,000 wafers if finalized.
Tesla is reportedly discussing an expansion of its next-generation AI chip supply deal with Samsung Electronics.
As per a report from Korean industry outlet The Elec, Tesla purchasing executives are reportedly scheduled to meet Samsung officials this week to negotiate additional production volume for the company’s upcoming AI6 chip.
Industry sources cited in the report stated that Tesla is pushing to increase the production volume of its AI6 chip, which will be manufactured using Samsung’s 2-nanometer process.
Tesla previously signed a long-term foundry agreement with Samsung covering AI6 production through December 31, 2033. The deal was reportedly valued at about 22.8 trillion won (roughly $16–17 billion).
Under the existing agreement, Tesla secured approximately 16,000 wafers per month from the facility. The company has reportedly requested an additional 24,000 wafers per month, which would bring total production capacity to around 40,000 wafers if finalized.
Tesla purchasing executives are expected to discuss detailed supply terms during their visit to Samsung this week.
The AI6 chip is expected to support several Tesla technologies. Industry sources stated that the chip could be used for the company’s Full Self-Driving system, the Optimus humanoid robot, and Tesla’s internal AI data centers.
The report also indicated that AI6 clusters could replace the role previously planned for Tesla’s Dojo AI supercomputer. Instead of a single system, multiple AI6 chips would be combined into server-level clusters.
Tesla’s semiconductor collaboration with Samsung dates back several years. Samsung participated in the design of Tesla’s HW3 (AI3) chip and manufactured it using a 14-nanometer process. The HW4 chip currently used in Tesla vehicles was also produced by Samsung using a 5-nanometer node.
Tesla previously planned to split production of its AI5 chip between Samsung and TSMC. However, the company reportedly chose Samsung as the primary partner for the newer AI6 chip.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk: Tesla could be first to build AGI in humanoid form
Musk’s statement was shared in a post on social media platform X.
Elon Musk predicted that Tesla could become one of the developers of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in humanoid form. Musk’s statement was shared in a post on social media platform X.
In his post, Musk stated that “Tesla will be one of the companies to make AGI and probably the first to make it in humanoid/atom-shaping form.”
The comment comes as Tesla expands development of its Optimus humanoid robot.
During Tesla’s Q4 earnings report, Elon Musk stated that production of the Model S and Model X would be phased out at its Fremont, California, facility. The vehicles’ production line will then be converted to a pilot line for Optimus. Tesla is looking to produce 1 million units of the humanoid robots annually to start.
Musk has previously stated that Optimus could eventually function as a von Neumann probe. The concept, proposed by mathematician John von Neumann, describes a machine capable of replicating itself using planetary resources and sending those replicas to other worlds.
Optimus would likely only be able to achieve this potential if it manages to achieve Artificial General Intelligence.
Other leaders in the AI sector have also expressed strong expectations about AGI’s potential. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, recently spoke about the technology at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, as noted in a Benzinga report.
“It’s going to be something like ten times the impact of the Industrial Revolution, but happening at ten times the speed,” Hassabis said.
Elon Musk’s recent comments about Tesla producing a product with AGI could hint at further collaboration among his companies. So far, Tesla is actively pursuing autonomous driving, but it is xAI that is pursuing AGI with its Grok program.
Considering that Elon Musk mentioned a Tesla humanoid product with AGI, it appears that an Optimus robot running xAI’s AI models could become a reality.
xAI had recently merged with SpaceX, though reports suggest that Elon Musk is also considering an even bigger merger for all his companies, including Tesla.
Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess
Tesla to discuss expansion of Samsung AI6 production plans: report
