MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Waymo plans to use the $5 billion it borrowed this month to expand its robotaxi fleet roughly fivefold, from about 4,000 vehicles today to 8,000 by the end of this year and 20,000 by the end of 2027, Semafor reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet, declined to comment to Semafor and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters, which followed the report on Monday evening. The company has not publicly confirmed the targets.
The $5 billion term loan, which Waymo closed on Oct. 8, was its first debt financing. PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street led the lenders, and Goldman Sachs was the sole lead bookrunner, the company's chief financial officer, Steve Fieler, wrote in a blog post at the time. He said the money "will accelerate the continued expansion of our fully autonomous ride-hailing service across the United States and internationally." Semafor reported that the loan came without guarantees from Alphabet and that the deal allows Waymo to borrow more in the future by securitizing leases on its fleet.
The targets would mark a sharp acceleration. Waymo had roughly 4,000 vehicles in U.S. service as of May, spanning its fifth- and sixth-generation driving systems, Quartz reported. The company has been aiming for one million paid rides a week across 20 cities worldwide by the end of this year, up from more than 500,000 fare-paying trips a week across 14 cities in early September, according to the same report.
Waymo now operates in 15 U.S. cities and has announced plans for London, Tokyo, Singapore and Canada, Reuters reported. On Oct. 14 it opened rides to anyone with its app in San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa, with no invite code required. Last week it said it would begin mapping Toronto, its first Canadian city, with Element Fleet Management running fleet operations and the first riders expected in 2028. In that announcement, Waymo said its cars had driven more than 400 million fully autonomous kilometers.
Growth on that scale depends on a steady supply of vehicles. Waymo said on Oct. 6 that a new silver version of its Ojai robotaxi was ramping up production at its driver integration plant in Mesa, Ariz., and would begin serving rides in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the coming weeks. The Ojai is a rebranded version of a vehicle made by Zeekr, a unit of China's Geely Holding Group, and Waymo has already ordered thousands of cars from China, Semafor reported, citing The New York Post.
A second source is coming from Georgia. Hyundai Motor's chief executive, Jose Muñoz, said in September that the automaker would mass-produce tens of thousands of Ioniq 5 robotaxis for Waymo at its Metaplant America complex, starting in the fourth quarter, Aju Press reported.
The cars also need places to charge and be cleaned. In Nashville, Lyft's fleet unit, Flexdrive, has opened an 80,000-square-foot depot near the airport to service Waymo vehicles. "Once this depot becomes formally opened, we can have hundreds of vehicles basically join the fleet," Annabel Chang of Waymo told WSMV, the Nashville television station.
The loan adds to a $16 billion equity raise that Waymo closed earlier this year at a valuation of $126 billion, Reuters reported.
The expansion comes as federal regulators look closely at the company's record. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating how Waymo vehicles behave around stopped school buses, TechCrunch has reported, and the National Transportation Safety Board opened its own investigation this year after Waymos were seen illegally passing stopped school buses in at least two states.
