Waymo and Toyota plot the road ahead for self-driving cars

Google’s robotaxi firm Waymo has reached a “preliminary agreement” with Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, to collaborate on autonomous driving technologies.

The Japanese carmaker is set to join a string of strategic partnerships Waymo has struck in recent years, including with companies like Hyundai and Zeekr.

The agreement announced by the two firms also mentions Woven, which is Toyota’s autonomous subsidiary.

The partnership would center on “accelerating the development and deployment of autonomous driving technologies,” Toyota and Waymo said in a statement.

Under the agreement, Toyota would build a new self-driving platform, which would be deployed in Waymo’s autonomous vehicle fleet.

The companies would also work to develop the next generation of personally owned vehicles (POVs), something that Google parent Alphabet is now focusing on.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said last week that Waymo self-driving taxis may be available for people to own in the future.

Spun out of Google in 2016, Waymo now operates driverless ride-hailing services in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, completing hundreds of thousands of trips each week.

Earlier in April, Waymo started collecting data in Tokyo, which the company picked as its first destination for international expansion.

While its fleet of self-driving cars occasionally encounters hiccups, some early studies, including from Swiss Re, an insurance company, have shown that Waymo's cars are safer than human-controlled vehicles.