Waymo has played Coy for years how many Jaguar I-PACE EVs are in their autonomous fleet-a figure that covers vehicles used in tests and commercial robotaxi operations. On Monday, the alphabet company finally gave a glimpse to the commercial side of the fleet.
Vemo said as part of a major announcement on Monday that it has more than 1,500 commercial robotaxis in the operation. And work is underway to expand it through a multi-silver dollar investment with Magna to manufacture over 2,000 autonomous i-pace vehicles in a new factory in Arizona.
Wemo has worked with Magna for years, ie in a closed feature in Detroit. The new 239,000 square -foot factory in the Phoenix suburb of Messa is strategically located in one of the robotax markets of Wemo and is close to its other service areas in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin.
A spokesperson of a vemo told Techcrunch that the company looked at other places, but eventually it chose Mesa for its proximity to other markets and because the frequent weather made it ideal for the necessary verification process before it was used by the public.
Vemo said in a blog post that announcing the factory that it had got a final delivery from Jaguar earlier this year. From here, contract builders Magna and Wemo handle the self-driving system to integrate in vehicles. Waymo emphasized a new process designed to speed up the production-to-validation-to-public use process, given that AVS could run themselves out of convenience and directly in service.
“In fact, these vehicles can pick up their first public travelers 30 minutes after leaving the factory,” Wemo said in his blog post. The company said that vehicles intended for other cities could be deployed in public service in a few hours after their sending to their local depots.
The MESA factory is designed to handle other vehicle platforms, especially to integrate the sixth generation of the self-driving system of the Vaymo in Zeekr RT at the end of this year.
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According to the company, the plant will introduce an automated assembly line and other abilities over time, stating that the plant will be able to manufacture thousands of autonomous vemo vehicles per year while working at full capacity.
