// ENGADGET — MONDO
Waymo and Toyota will soon start testing their robotaxis in Japan
The companies plan to deploy their autonomous bZ4X vehicles to other right-hand drive markets like the UK.
In April 2025, Toyota and Waymo entered a preliminary agreement to work together on robotaxis. Now, the companies have announced that they will start testing an autonomous fleet of Toyota bZ4X electric vehicles in Japan sometime in 2027. After Japan, they're planning to deploy the vehicles to the UK and other right-hand drive markets in the years that follow.
The bZ4X is Toyota's first modern mass-market electric vehicle based on the e-TNGA platform it developed with Subaru. Toyota will be manufacturing the bZ4X units it's deploying and testing with Waymo at its Takaoka plant in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. That's also where the automaker is assembling the vehicles and equipping them with Waymo's autonomous vehicle hardware.
"By pairing Toyota's global manufacturing and vehicle development expertise with Waymo's fully autonomous technology, the companies will accelerate scaling safety-validated Level 4 autonomous vehicles globally," they said in a statement.
The autonomous bZ4X fleet will join Waymo's other vehicles in the country. It started testing its Jaguar I-PACE self-driving taxis in 2025 and had drivers from Tokyo taxi company Nihon Kotsu Co. drive the cars around the Japanese capital to train the company's software. Next year, Waymo will launch a fully autonomous ride-hailing service in Tokyo as a result of those efforts, though it's unclear when it will add the bZ4X vehicles to its commercial fleet.