What Just Changed

Waymo didn't slow down after last week's service suspensions. It accelerated.

On Thursday, Waymo opened public rides in its new Ojai robotaxi — a pale blue electric minivan built by China's Geely — to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, according to CNBC. San Diego, Las Vegas, and Denver come online this summer. Detroit is in the pipeline for later this year, per The Detroit News, which spotted Ojai test vehicles already running on Motor City streets.

For now, the rides are free.

The Hardware Upgrade Is Legitimate

The Ojai isn't just a rebadged van. It's a full-system overhaul.

According to Interesting Engineering, the sixth-generation Waymo Driver uses 13 cameras, 4 lidars, and 6 radar units — a 42% reduction in total sensors compared to the 29-camera setup on the old Jaguar I-PACE fleet. That sounds like a downgrade. It isn't.

Waymo replaced raw sensor count with a 17-megapixel imager that can identify objects up to 500 meters away in complete darkness, according to Interesting Engineering. Fewer sensors, sharper eyes.

The system also adds External Audio Receivers (EARs) — hardware designed to detect emergency sirens and filter out wind noise at high speeds. Wired reported the vehicle now includes physical heaters and wipers for harsh-weather operation, which matters enormously for markets like Detroit and Denver where the old tech struggled.

Waymo VP of Engineering Satish Jeyachandran called the sixth-gen system "the primary engine for our next era of expansion," according to CNBC.

The China Problem

The Ojai rides on Geely's SEA-M architecture platform — shared with the Zeekr C1Me and RT vehicles — and the chassis are imported from China, according to The Detroit News. Waymo then ships those chassis to its Phoenix facility to install autonomous hardware and software.

Waymo pays tariffs on those imports. And because the vehicles aren't sold retail to consumers, they currently dodge U.S. regulations restricting Chinese car imports. That's a legal gray area, NOT a clean bill of health.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said it plainly to Waymo's safety chief at a Senate committee hearing last week: "We're locked in a race with China, but it seems like you're getting in bed with China," according to CNBC.

Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp told CNBC that the company will NOT provide Geely subsidiary Zeekr with "any access to its closely-held autonomous driving technology, sensor data, nor any rider information." That's the corporate answer.

But critical questions remain unanswered: What data does Geely collect from these vehicles before Waymo takes ownership of the chassis? What's in the manufacturing agreement? The national security concern isn't paranoid — it's logical. Chinese-built hardware running on American streets, operated by an Alphabet subsidiary with $16 billion in fresh capital, raises legitimate questions about data handling and supply-chain security that have received minimal scrutiny in press coverage.

The Scale Waymo Is Targeting

Waymo currently has 100 Ojai vehicles rolling as part of a nearly 4,000-car fleet, according to CNBC. Waymo's head of design, Ryan Powell, told CNBC the company plans "thousands" of Ojai vehicles on the road by end of year.

The company has completed over 20 million autonomous rides total and is targeting 1 million weekly trips by year's end, Powell said.

Alphabet and other backers poured $16 billion into Waymo in February. Goldman Sachs estimated the global driverless ride-hailing market could exceed $25 billion by 2030.

What This Means for the Service Suspensions

Waymo halted operations in six cities and suspended freeway service in four more earlier this year. Those issues involved flooding responses and construction-zone behavior in the existing Jaguar fleet.

The Ojai rollout doesn't reverse those decisions. But it reframes them. Waymo isn't retreating. It's replacing the hardware it considers inadequate with a system built specifically to handle the conditions that caused problems. The sixth-gen system's weather hardening — those integrated wipers, heaters, and improved lidar — is a direct engineering response to the environmental failures that triggered the shutdowns.

Detroit Is Watching

The Detroit News report is the most interesting piece of this puzzle. Waymo test vehicles are already on Detroit streets — between 10 and 20, according to Telemetry VP of Market Research Sam Abuelsamid. Full autonomous operations are expected later this year, pending regulatory sign-off.

That's a Chinese-built autonomous van operating in the heart of the American auto industry. The irony is striking.

"We've received a warm welcome from Detroit," Waymo Product Communications Manager Chris Bonelli told The Detroit News.

UAW leadership may have a different view once the Geely logo registers.

Where This Stands

Waymo's Ojai launch represents real progress — better hardware, lower costs, smarter sensors, and genuine weather capability. The engineering case is solid.

The China sourcing is real. The data security questions are unanswered. The political pressure is building. Waymo can't dismiss those concerns with a spokesperson statement. Congress and the public will eventually demand more than assurances. That reckoning is coming faster than Waymo's expansion timeline.