Waymo said it will start operating a paid, fully driverless robotaxi service in Tokyo in 2027, its first commercial deployment outside the United States. The Alphabet unit is teaming with local taxi giant Nihon Kotsu and mobility app GO to run a fleet of roughly 100 Jaguar I-PACEs across seven central wards, pending Japanese regulatory sign-off.
A three-way division of labor
Waymo brings the Waymo Driver, the vehicles and fleet management, while Nihon Kotsu handles depot operations and legal responsibility for the fleet on Japanese roads. GO manages dispatch, and — unusually for Waymo — riders will be able to book trips through either the GO app or Waymo's own. It is the first time Waymo has committed to distributing its service through a partner app outside the US, a concession to the entrenched position GO enjoys in the Japanese ride-hail market.
Two years of Tokyo homework
Waymo's Jaguars first landed in Tokyo in December 2024, and Nihon Kotsu drivers spent 2025 manually piloting them to build detailed maps of the city's narrow neighborhood roads and pedestrian-dense intersections. Supervised autonomous testing followed through 2026, letting the Waymo Driver adapt to left-hand traffic, dense signage, and Tokyo's famously crowded curb space before any customer ever hails a ride.
Waymo's Asia beachhead
The Tokyo push comes as Waymo pushes past 500,000 paid trips a week in the US and continues a rapid domestic rollout — San Diego, Tampa and Denver went live earlier this month as Zoox started testing in Houston. Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana says the service is "over 15 times safer than human drivers" against the US baseline, a talking point Waymo will need to hold up under Japan's more conservative regulatory eye.
Squeezing Tesla and China
Tokyo also puts Waymo in early position to define autonomous ride-hail in a country closed off to Chinese robotaxi operators and where Tesla's Cybercab has yet to arrive — Tesla only unveiled the Cybercab in Austin on September 3 and is already under an NHTSA audit query. If the 2027 launch holds, Waymo, Nihon Kotsu and GO will effectively split Tokyo's first regulated driverless market three ways before any rival crosses the ocean.
Reporting based on coverage from Waymo, Automotive World, The Japan Times and TRAICY.