Waymo has announced plans to bring its self-driving taxis to Tokyo in early 2025, beating Japanese automakers to the draw and stealing a march on Tesla’s robotaxi in the largest urban market for autonomous driving outside China.
This past week the Alphabet (Google) subsidiary revealed a partnership with Nihon Kotsu, the top taxi and limousine service company in Tokyo, and GO, Japan’s most popular taxi app. Nihon Kotsu will be in charge of managing and servicing of Waymo vehicles. GO provides easy-to-understand directions in English.
First, Nihon Kotsu drivers will operate Waymo’s cars manually to map the central areas of the city – the heavily traveled and frequently visited districts of Shinjuku-ku, Shibuya-ku, Minato-ku, Chiyoda-ku, Shinagawa-ku and Koto-ku.