Lucid and Bolt Partner on European Robotaxi Business, to Deploy 25,000 Vehicles

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle development company under Alphabet, announced on September 18 that it plans to launch a full driverless electric vehicle ride-hailing service in Singapore by 2028, marking its first entry into the Southeast Asian market. The first batch of driverless electric vehicles to be deployed will be the Jaguar I-PACE, which will be shipped to Singapore in the coming months. Under the plan for 2027, trained vehicle operators will begin human-supervised test drives to train and tune the Waymo Driver system to familiarise it with Singapore's road characteristics and monsoon weather, before officially opening the service to the general public in 2028. Waymo is working closely with Singapore's Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Authority, or LTA. Singapore's Minister for Transport Jeffrey Siow said Singapore welcomes Waymo's entry as the latest autonomous vehicle service provider. The move comes after Waymo earlier this week announced plans to launch Japan's first full commercial driverless taxi service in Tokyo by 2027. Waymo is currently valued at 126 billion US dollars as of last February, after raising 16 billion dollars, and continues to expand its fleet of driverless taxis amid fierce competition in the autonomous driving market with major rivals such as Amazon's Zoox and Tesla.

Uber Technologies Inc. and WeRide, together with AVOMO, have secured Spain's first national permit covering level 4 autonomous passenger vehicles, making Madrid the fourth city in the Uber-WeRide partnership. The permit was issued by Spain's Directorate General of Traffic and allows WeRide to test its GXR vehicles and conduct roadmapping throughout Madrid ahead of a commercial launch planned for year-end, starting with 20 vehicles each supervised by an in-car specialist in high-demand areas of Greater Madrid. The Uber-WeRide partnership plans to reach 15 cities globally by 2030, part of an Uber asset-light AV strategy that spans more than 30 partnerships, with Uber expecting to commit over $10 billion across AV investments, infrastructure, and vehicle offtake over the coming years. That multi-partner bet is under strain: Uber and Waymo confirmed in late June that their Phoenix partnership had ended, Waymo is reportedly considering a broader exit, and the NHTSA is investigating Uber AV partner Avride after multiple crashes, while Tesla ramps up its own Cybercab fleet and Waymo has raised $16 billion to accelerate independent growth. Hedge fund ownership was broadly stable, with holders slipping from 153 at the end of Q1 2026 to 151 at the end of Q2 2026, and short interest stood at only 2.29% of float as of August 31, 2026.