Self-driving technology company Waymo announced on Monday that it will significantly expand its self-driving car operations in the U.S. with the opening of a new manufacturing plant in Mesa, Arizona.
Currently, Waymo operates 1,500 self-driving cars in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, completing more than 250,000 paid trips per week. With the new MESA facility, the company plans to add 2,000 cars to its fleet by 2026 and expand to cities such as Atlanta, Miami and Washington, D.C.
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The 239,000-square-foot factory, developed in partnership with Magna, will transform the Jaguar I-Pace Electric SUV using Waymo’s sixth-generation autonomous driving technology, called Waymo drivers. The facility is expected to produce thousands of cars each year, accelerating Waymo’s mission to provide fully autonomous rides in cities across the country.
The MESA facility also introduces a simplified process that enables vehicles to prepare passenger service shortly after production. For example, vehicles assigned to the Phoenix Fleet can start picking up and dropping passengers within 30 minutes of leaving the factory.
“Mesa’s Waymo Driver Integration Plant is the center of our future growth plans,” Ryan McNamara, vice president of operations at Waymo, said in a statement. “In the case of Magna’s partners, we have opened a manufacturing location that enables cost efficiency, flexibility and capability to extend our fleet to new heights.”
