Waymo joins hands with Geely to develop driverless taxis

Self-driving technology developer Waymo has joined hands with premium electric mobility company Zeekr, owned by Geely Holding to develop driverless taxis, reports Reuters. The two companies together will be developing the self-driving taxis that will be deployed as ride-hailing vehicles across the United States.

These vehicles will be designed and developed at Zeekr's facility in Sweden and later integrated with Waymo's self-driving technology, as Geely has said.

The concept images published by Waymo on Tuesday reveal a roomy, low-to-ground minivan with a seating capacity for around five riders and sliding doors on each side. Waymo comes as the first and the only fully autonomous driving taxi service in the United States. The company has already driven thousands of people since launching the service a year ago in Phoenix and constantly aiming to upgrade its technology.

As the report claims, this partnership between Waymo and Zeekr will help the former to expand its driverless ride-hailing service fleet in the face of increasing competition. It will also create an inroad for the Chinese brand Geely into the US market.

Self-driving technology is something auto manufacturers across the world have been very keenly working upon. Besides that several automotive and technology startups too are working on this same. Despite the improvements, no automaker has yet launched a completely self-driving technology-enabled vehicle. The technologies available in the market are usually semi-autonomous driving systems, which require driven intervention.

Tesla is at the forefront of the development of this technology. The Autopilot semi-autonomous driving system has already grabbed pretty much attention. Now, the carmaker is also working on a fully self-driving technology, which is known as FSD.

However, with developments like self-driving taxi fleets by Waymo, the automakers might soon come up with their fully autonomous driving vehicles.