Soon you could see Waymo self-driving tech in Hyundai cars. The autonomous driving tech developer Waymo said this week that it would partner with the Korean automaker Hyundai to equip a fleet of its electric vehicles with self-driving technology. The vehicles, modified Ioniq 5s, will hit the road as part of Waymo’s self-driving ride-hail service in late 2025, the companies said.
In a statement, Hyundai Motor Company president and global COO José Muñoz called the agreement a “first step” in the two firms’ partnership. “We are actively exploring additional opportunities for collaboration,” he said—opening up the possibility that Waymo self-driving tech could one day be installed on Hyundai passenger vehicles.
However, the multinational partnership is the latest to prompt questions about how Waymo, arguably the world’s most successful autonomous-driving company, will handle a global realignment of the automotive industry.
China’s new dominance in auto manufacturing and export has worried other global automakers, some of whom have argued that the country has unfair trade advantages. Over the past year, Western countries have built firmer trade walls to prevent the incursion of inexpensive Chinese electric and autonomous vehicles. Last month, the US finalized rules that dramatically increased tariffs against Chinese-made EVs and battery materials.
The US Commerce Department also last month proposed a rule that would ban some Chinese- and Russian-made automotive hardware and software from the US, with an emphasis on technology that enables autonomy. Just this week, the European Union voted to hike tariffs against Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Interestingly, Waymo insists that a partnership with Chinese-owned automaker Zeekr is still on. The deal, announced in late 2021, has seen Zeekr purpose-build roomier autonomous minivans for the Alphabet subsidiary that are also less expensive to manufacture. The Zeekr vehicle officially made its debut in San Francisco in June, though Waymo says it’s still in testing and is not yet part of its public ride-hail fleet.
Zeekr is owned by Chinese automaker Geely, though its design center and one of its research and development facilities are in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Swedish city is also the headquarters of majority Geely-owned automakers Volvo and Polestar, an all-electric premium automaker.
In an email on Friday, Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli wrote that the Hyundai Ioniq 5s “will not replace any of our other vehicle platforms,” and said the company is “hard at work validating” the latest version of Waymo’s tech on the Zeekr platform.
In proposing new rules targeting Chinese-made auto software and hardware, the US government argued that such tech installed on US vehicles could create a long-term national security issue. “Imagine if there were thousands or hundreds of thousands of Chinese-connected vehicles on American roads that could be immediately and simultaneously disabled by somebody in Beijing,” US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said earlier this year.
But in public comments submitted to the Commerce Department in April, Waymo representatives insisted that, despite its partnership with the Chinese automaker, China has nothing to do with the vital tech of the Zeekr-made robotaxi. “The AV-ready base vehicles being provided to Waymo have no driving automation or telematics capabilities built into them,” the company wrote, saying that only US-based Waymo personnel install autonomous technology onto vehicles at an American factory. The company said that, once operating in the US, the vehicles cannot remotely communicate with the vehicle’s manufacturer—Zeekr.
“No data that Waymo collects from American consumers, from our technology, or from our vehicles, is or is planned to be stored in, transferred to, or processed in a foreign adversary’s jurisdiction,” the company wrote in its comments.
A spokesperson for the Office of the US Trade Representative, which develops and promotes trade policy, said last month that the agency was following the issue but noted that the rule was subject to a 30-day public comment period. After that, the US will finalize the rule; the government has said it plans to do so before President Joe Biden leaves office early next year.
The US Commerce Department declined to comment. Zeekr did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
The Hyundai announcement raises interesting questions about the role Waymo might play in the future of autonomous vehicles. The long-term agreement makes clear that the company has plans to continue to operate its own ride-hail service, Waymo One. Though Waymo says it builds parts of the vehicles, it’s not manufacturing cars itself.
Meanwhile, Waymo said last month that it would work with ride-hail giant Uber to put robotaxis on the company’s platform in Atlanta and Austin, leaving the management services, including vehicle cleaning and repair, to Uber. Is future Waymo a ride-hail company, a tech developer that licenses its product to others—or both? “It’s as if we’re putting pieces of a puzzle together, but the picture isn’t in place yet,” says Michael Dunne, an auto expert and CEO of the intelligence and advisory firm Dunne Insights.
The partnership also comes at an interesting moment for Hyundai. The Korean auto group has said it is working on its own self-driving technology. The automaker has invested billions in Motional, a joint venture with the automotive supplier Aptiv. But Motional has faced headwinds this year, after Aptiv said it would invest less in the autonomous tech firm. Hyundai purchased millions of dollars’ worth of shares in the firm, but Motional still restructured earlier this year, laying off about 40 percent of its staff and seeing the departure of its longtime CEO.
Waymo operates public ride-hailing services in metro Phoenix, Arizona, and San Francisco, and runs a more limited service in Los Angeles. The company is preparing to launch public service in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, next year. Waymo says it has provided 2 million paid trips to members of the public, and driven more than 20 million miles autonomously.
