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Deployment

Waymo Driver (6th gen) at California

The sixth-generation Waymo Driver is Waymo's autonomous driving stack for fully autonomous robotaxi service. The platform integrates 13 cameras, 4 lidars, 6 radars, and external audio receivers, with overlapping 360° coverage and a detection range up to roughly 500 meters in nominal conditions. Compared to the fifth-generation system on the Jaguar I-PACE, the sixth-gen system uses 42% fewer total sensors.

Waymo says the per-unit hardware cost is targeted under $20,000 — a more than 50% reduction from the 5th-gen system. Currently runs on the Zeekr RT (sold as the “Ojai” robotaxi, purpose-built without a steering wheel or pedals) and the Hyundai IONIQ 5; began fully autonomous commercial operations in February 2026.

Waymo Driver (6th gen) by Waymo · Catalog entry · 1 source · not yet field-verified · Robotaxis

Track Waymo Driver (6th gen) at California

Recent coverage

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Waymo deploying driverless cars to 15 US cities and counting. Vehicles encountering new and unexpected challenges as scale grows. NYT reports on growing pains alongside rapid expansion.

Key facts

Cities
15+ US cities
Status
Scaling rapidly with growing pains

Exposure

Customer segment
consumer
Scale tier
fleet 1000 plus

Each exposure value carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.

Safety record

No incidents on record for Waymo Driver (6th gen) at California.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Trust tier
Catalog entry · 1 source · not yet field-verifiedhow tiers work →
Last updated
2026-08-17
Model
Waymo Driver (6th gen)
Company
Waymo
Location
United States/California
Operator
Waymo
Status
scaled
Operator type
maker operated
ID
f4f3652a-cfd6-444e-83ec-39149acf5684

Timeline

  1. Aug 2026
    Current status: scaled, reviewed
    Latest recorded state. New status transitions append here as the deployment-status recorder produces them.

Claimed vs. verified

Waymo claims 3,500 Waymo Driver (6th gen) units in the field. DEPLOY has independently verified 29 deployment sites and 1,500 units.

The gap between claimed and verified is the Fleet Reality signal. See the Fleet Reality Index.

On the deployment map

Free to use on your site, with a link back to DEPLOY.

Waymo Driver (6th gen) operates in California. Explore the full verified map:

Sources (1)

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/waymo-growing-glitches
Methodology: Verified · 1 source (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-08-17

Verification posture

Verified

Medium confidence

Review state

Stable

Last reviewed 2026-08-17

Maturity + lifecycle

Maturity stage: commercial

Lifecycle: active

Architectural position

Cohort: av

Sources by quality tier

1
secondary-established-publication
Established publication

The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.

Methodology surface for Waymo Driver (6th gen) at California.

Common questions

What is the Waymo Driver (6th gen) deployment at California?
Waymo Driver (6th gen), built by Waymo, is recorded as a deployment at California on the DEPLOY registry. Waymo operates the deployment directly.
Who operates Waymo Driver (6th gen) at California?
Waymo, the manufacturer of Waymo Driver (6th gen), operates this deployment directly. This is a maker-deploys-its-own-product arrangement rather than a customer pilot.
Have there been incidents at the Waymo Driver (6th gen) deployment at California?
No active incidents affecting this deployment are recorded on the DEPLOY registry. Absence of recorded incidents is not a guarantee no incident occurred; DEPLOY records only sourced incidents and suppresses retracted ones.

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