Waymo and Zeekr to Collaborate on All-Electric, Fully Autonomous Ride-Hailing Vehicle

Geely announced on Tuesday that its premium electric brand, Zeekr, will collaborate with Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving technology arm, on the development of a new pure electric vehicle for deployment in the Waymo One autonomous ride-hailing fleet in the United States.

Once the development and manufacturing process is completed, Waymo will take delivery of the vehicles in the United States and will then integrate its fully autonomous Waymo Driver into the vehicle platform.

The new purpose-built mobility vehicle is being designed and developed at Zeekr’s R&D facility, CEVT (China Europe Vehicle Technology Centre) in Gothenburg, Sweden. Under this collaboration, Zeekr will be designing and developing the future vehicle on a new proprietary and open-source mobility architecture.

The new vehicle will be designed to be rider-centric from the outset. The vehicle has been designed for autonomous use-cases and will come with a fully configurable cabin, both with and without driver controls, that can be tailored towards rider requirements for the Waymo One unmanned ride-hailing fleet in the US.

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Zeekr was founded in early 2021 as a global technology-mobility brand with design and engineering resources in Sweden. The first model from Zeekr, the 001, was introduced in April 2021 with deliveries having started in October.