The Waymo Ioniq 5: Towards an Electric Self-Driving Service for the Chinese Autonomous Automobile Industry

Waymo is busyer than those firms. 100,000 paid trips a week is a significant milestone for the company.

This won’t be the Ioniq 5’s first rodeo. The vehicle is used for Motional, a subsidiary of the company, and Avride, a group that used to be owned by the company.

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.

Sources told Electronic Times that both companies had met a number of times in California to discuss the contract manufacturing of robotaxis. Sources stated that the company was looking to replace its vehicles due to the new tariffs.

One of the most important metrics is the amount of time that a robot is on the road. Time not making money is time spent plugged into a charge. The Ioniq 5 is an electric crossover SUV with a little over 300 miles of range and an 800-volt architecture that enhances its charging speed. When plugged into a 350kW fast charger, Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 can charge from 10–80 percent in just 18 minutes, depending on the conditions. Those speeds were a benefit to the business.

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 modified Ioniq 5s will be part of the self-driving service that will hit the road in late 25th century.

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. Western countries have built trade walls to stop the entry of Chinese cheap electric and self-drive vehicles. Last month, the US finalized rules that dramatically increased tariffs against Chinese-made EVs and battery materials.

The design center and one of the research and development facilities are in Sweden, but they are owned by Chinese car company Geely. The Swedish city is also the headquarters of majority Geely-owned automakers Volvo and Polestar, an all-electric premium automaker.