Big news for autonomous driving! Waymo is about to start international testing, with the first destination being Tokyo.

Alphabet's tech giant Waymo announced on Monday local time that they plan to start testing their autonomous driving taxis based on unmanned driving mode in Tokyo, Japan in early 2025. This is the first step towards international market expansion for the leader in the autonomous driving field. The purpose of Waymo's plan is to test, and they have not committed to launching any commercial autonomous driving services in Tokyo. However, this autonomous driving taxi leader will collaborate extensively with Nihon Kotsu, Japan's largest taxi operator, and taxi and ride-hailing app GO, to prepare for testing their Jaguar I-PACE autonomous driving cars on the streets of Tokyo. First, Nihon Kotsu drivers will manually drive Waymo vehicles to map key areas of Tokyo, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chuo, Shinagawa, and Koto wards. The data collected from manned test drives will help train the company's AI supercomputer system. Waymo also plans to test their autonomous driving taxis on a closed road in the United States designed to simulate the driving environment in Tokyo. A Waymo spokesperson stated that this is the first phase of their collaboration on autonomous driving taxis in both countries, and it will continue for several quarters. They also noted that the company expects to stay in Japan for a longer period of time. "Our upcoming journey to Tokyo will give us the opportunity to collaborate with local partners, government officials, and community groups to understand the new conditions," Waymo said in a statement. "We will learn how Waymo can provide convenient and efficient services to residents in Tokyo and become a beneficial part of the city's transportation ecosystem." The company stated that Nihon Kotsu will be responsible for managing and maintaining Waymo vehicles in Japan. Just a week before Waymo announced their expansion into the international market, General Motors Company announced plans to exit their Cruise autonomous driving taxi business division. Cruise's external investors, Japanese company Honda Motor Co., Ltd. Sponsored ADR, had originally planned to launch autonomous driving taxi services in Japan in early 2026, but they are now reevaluating these plans and making adjustments as necessary. Before General Motors Company formally decided to exit the autonomous driving taxi business, Cruise was one of Waymo's main competitors in the United States, not Tesla, Inc. Waymo and Cruise have already received commercial operation permits in several US cities, whereas Tesla, Inc. has not applied for such permits and their Robotaxi plan is still in its early stages. Waymo is far ahead in the development of autonomous driving technology compared to Tesla, Inc. In comparison to Musk's "big promises," Waymo's progress in the field of autonomous driving taxis based on unmanned driving mode is much faster and more advanced in terms of autonomous driving technology maturity and practical commercial application than Tesla, Inc.'s still in the planning and imagining stages Robotaxi. Waymo has been offering fully unmanned taxi services in Phoenix since 2020 and has gradually expanded to cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. By 2024, Waymo provided over 150,000 paid trips per week and their autonomous driving fleet drove over 1 million miles per week. Waymo has achieved large-scale commercial operations in multiple cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, and plans to further expand their autonomous driving taxi service to Austin and Atlanta. Waymo currently uses a specially designed sixth generation autonomous driving system with multiple radars, LiDAR, and cameras, providing high-precision perception in various weather conditions. Tesla, Inc., on the other hand, primarily relies on its "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) feature, which still requires human drivers to supervise and has not reached full unmanned driving level. Tesla, Inc.'s "FSD in fully unmanned driving mode" still needs formal approval from the US government, and this FSD technology is also at the core of Robotaxi. Tesla, Inc. plans to accomplish this in the near future.In 2026, it launched its Robotaxi autonomous taxi service (called Cybercab), but currently only prototype vehicles have been displayed, and it has not yet entered the commercialization stage. The core technology on which Robotaxi relies - the Fully Self-Driving mode (FSD) - requires approval and review.The era of Trump 2.0 is coming, can Tesla, Inc. and others come to the rescue? With Trump set to return to the White House in January next year, the progress of Tesla, Inc.'s FSD and Robotaxi approvals may enter an accelerated stage. Senior analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush and his team believe that Trump's return to the White House will completely change the narrative logic of Tesla, Inc. and Tesla, Inc. CEO Musk's companies in the coming years in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and Tesla, Inc.'s artificial intelligence supercomputer system. In the view of Ives' team, after Trump returns to the presidency, the U.S. Federal government's approval process for Tesla, Inc.'s fully autonomous driving and Robotaxi self-driving taxi could see a significant acceleration. Ives' team emphasized, "We estimate that for Tesla, Inc. alone, the opportunities for development in the areas of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving are worth $1 trillion. We fully expect that under the new U.S. government led by Trump, these key initiatives will be rapidly tracked and promoted. Because Trump has promised to let Musk lead the so-called Government Efficiency Commission to oversee the efficiency of the federal government's work, the federal regulatory spider web that Tesla, Inc. under Musk has encountered in the past few years regarding FSD/ AI-based supercomputing system for autonomous driving will be significantly cleared in the new era under Trump's leadership." It is reported that Wedbush has significantly raised its target price for Tesla, Inc. in the next 12 months from $400 to $515 in its latest report, becoming the highest target price on Wall Street. The firm also provided a "bull case" target price of $650, which would make Tesla, Inc.'s market value reach around $2.1 trillion. As of Monday's close on the US stock market, Tesla, Inc. closed at $463.020, with its stock price soaring by 85% since Trump's victory in November.