New Waymo Robotaxi Custom Built By Zeekr Spotted in San Diego

Finally!

Waymo partnered up with Zeekr awhile back to develop custom-designed robotaxi vehicles for Waymo’s operations. It was a bit of a funny partnership, since Waymo is a US company focused on the US market and Zeekr is a Chinese EV startup. If that wasn’t odd enough in a vacuum, there has of course been the strongly anti-China stance the US has held over the past decade, with President Trump and then President Biden and then President Trump again slapping tariffs on China-produced products.

At some point, I started to wonder if we’d ever actually see the Zeekr Waymo vehicles on the road. Well, now some people have. They’ve been testing out in San Diego, California. You can watch a Reuters video of one testing here.

Where will these Zeekr robotaxis first be deployed? I would guess California, a bit further north, but we’ll see. But aside from the rollout of this model, there’s another notable point to make. Waymo is presumably planning to launch service in San Diego as well soon. It just started rolling out robotaxis in 5 new cities — Miami, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Orlando — but it has not announced any plans to enter San Diego. That said, it did include “America’s Finest City” in its 2025 summer road trip, and given that the company already has service in Los Angeles and San Francisco (and first launched in fairly nearby Phoenix), it seems like a guarantee that the “Birthplace of California” has to be one of the next launch cities. Also note that another nickname of the city is “City in Motion!” Come on.

Aside from the video linked above, here are some other previews of the Zeekr Waymo from when it was previously announced: