In autonomous and self-driving vehicles news are Zoox, Waymo, Pony.ai, WeRide, Boca Raton, REE Automotive, TIER IV, TERN, Tesla, DeepRoute.ai, WeRide,
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Zoox Expands Robotaxis in San Fran.
Amazon-owned Zoox has begun offering free robotaxi rides to select San Francisco residents, marking a significant step in its bid to compete with Waymo. The service is limited for now, available only to people on a waitlist and operating in neighborhoods such as SoMa, the Mission, and the Design District. Zoox uses its own custom-built, steering-wheel-free autonomous vehicles—compact, carriage-style shuttles designed specifically for driverless urban mobility.
The initiative is part of Zoox’s “early rider” program, which allows the company to gather data and refine service operations before fully opening the platform to the public. While the rides are currently free, Zoox plans to begin charging once it receives full regulatory approval from California authorities. The company has indicated that it expects to remove the waitlist next year as it expands both its fleet and operational footprint.
Zoox’s expansion comes as it boosts its manufacturing capabilities. The company recently opened a 220,000-square-foot factory in Hayward, California, designed to eventually produce up to 10,000 robotaxis per year. The vehicles are packed with sensors—lidar, radar, cameras, and microphones—giving them a detailed understanding of their surroundings and allowing them to navigate complex urban environments.
Regulatory and safety challenges remain. Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed a probe into Zoox’s self-certification process after granting an exemption for its driverless fleet. The company has also faced scrutiny following a series of minor collisions in San Francisco, including incidents with scooters, prompting software updates and operational adjustments. Despite these hurdles, Zoox is positioning itself as a major contender in the increasingly competitive robotaxi landscape, aiming to redefine autonomous transportation in one of the nation’s most challenging cities for self-driving technology.
Waymo Expands Autonomous Driving to Five New U.S. Cities
Waymo is bringing its fully autonomous, driverless ride service to five new cities—Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando—marking one of its largest expansions to date. Operations have already begun in Miami, with the remaining cities launching in the coming weeks. The company says its “generalizable” Waymo Driver technology can safely adapt to new environments with minimal changes, thanks to extensive real-world testing, simulation, and iterative software updates.
To ensure safety, Waymo compares each new city’s performance to established benchmarks and fine-tunes its AI to local conditions such as road layouts, traffic patterns, and weather. The company reports that its autonomous vehicles experience far fewer serious-injury collisions than human drivers, underscoring its long-term safety claims.
Waymo also highlights its operational playbook, which includes rider assistance systems, fleet management practices, and collaboration with local governments and regulators. The company works directly with policymakers, safety officials, and community organizations to build trust and ensure its services integrate smoothly into local transportation networks.
This multi-city rollout aligns with Waymo’s broader expansion strategy, which includes widening service areas in California and preparing for broader commercial availability nationwide.
Pony.ai Unveils Gen-4 Autonomous Trucks
Pony.ai announced its fourth-generation autonomous truck lineup, developed with partners including SANY Truck. The new Gen-4 system uses fully automotive-grade components and cuts BOM costs by about 70% versus the previous generation. Built largely from the company’s latest Robotaxi tech, the trucks are designed for a 20,000-hour service life and up to 1 million kilometers of operation.
The first two models will be battery-electric and mass-produced at the thousand-unit scale, with deployment starting in 2026. Featuring full redundancy across six critical systems—steering, braking, communication, power, computing, and sensors—the trucks target a major boost in safety and reliability. They will undergo extensive durability, extreme-weather, and electromagnetic testing.
Aimed at China’s fast-growing intelligent-logistics sector, the trucks are expected to reduce freight costs and emissions. In a “1+4” platoon (one human-driven lead truck plus four autonomous followers), costs per kilometer could drop 29%, profit margins could rise 195%, and emissions could fall by roughly 60 tons per vehicle annually.
Pony.ai has been active in autonomous trucking since 2018, now operating around 200 trucks with over 1 billion ton-kilometers of freight completed and holding leading test and operational permits across multiple regions in China.
WeRide Wins First Driverless Robotaxi Permit in Abu Dhabi
WeRide has been granted approval to launch fully driverless Robotaxi services in Abu Dhabi, making it one of the first companies outside the U.S. to receive a city-level commercial permit for Level 4 autonomous vehicles — and the first international company to do so in the UAE. The permit, issued October 31, 2025, authorizes commercial rides without an onboard safety driver on the Uber and TXAI platforms.
The approval follows extensive testing and builds on WeRide’s earlier UAE national license, as well as its long-running Robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi since 2021. The company’s expanding partnership with Uber and TXAI now covers roughly half of the city’s core areas, with full core-area coverage targeted by year-end.
WeRide Robotaxis have accumulated nearly one million kilometers in the region. Removing the safety-driver requirement brings the service to financial breakeven on unit economics and supports WeRide’s goal of deploying 1,000 Robotaxis in the Middle East by 2026 and tens of thousands by 2030.
Boca Raton to Launch MiCa
The City of Boca Raton, together with Circuit Transit and Guident, will launch MiCa, the city’s first autonomous shuttle service, on November 21, 2025 at Mizner Park. The electric, self-driving shuttle will run a loop within Mizner Park to provide residents and visitors with a safe, sustainable mobility option.
MiCa is supported by Guident’s Remote Monitoring and Control Center (RMCC) Platform, which combines real-time human oversight with predictive safety technologies, encrypted data, system redundancy, and fleet analytics. The platform transforms the shuttle into part of a broader intelligent transportation network for the city.
Launch event features include a ceremony with city leaders, a showcase of live telemetry and safety monitoring, and community engagement booths.
The program builds on Circuit’s existing transportation services in Boca Raton and represents a collaborative effort among the city, Circuit, and Guident to advance safer, smarter, and more accessible autonomous mobility. Future expansions of the route and technology are planned.
REE Automotive and Mitsubishi Fuso Partner
REE Automotive has signed an MoU with Mitsubishi Fuso to jointly develop a software-defined vehicle (SDV) based on REE’s zonal SDV architecture and x-by-wire (XBW) technology. Over the next year, the companies will convert a Mitsubishi Fuso eCanter electric truck into an SDV to evaluate REE’s platform for future Fuso commercial vehicles.
Mitsubishi Fuso selected REE’s technology for its scalability, performance, cybersecurity, over-the-air update capability, and AI-driven serviceability—key elements for next-generation, connected, autonomous-ready trucks. REE’s XBW architecture, already deployed in its FMVSS-certified P7-C truck, is designed to reduce hardware complexity, cut total cost of ownership, and support continuous upgrades.
The collaboration aims to accelerate Mitsubishi Fuso’s move toward smarter, safer, cloud-connected commercial vehicles and explore REE as a supplier for future scalable product lines. Both companies see the partnership as a way to advance solutions for emissions reduction, safety improvements, and driver shortages.
TIER IV Chosen for Japanese Public-Sector Autonomous
TIER IV, the leader in open-source autonomous driving software, has been selected for a major Japanese government project aimed at accelerating autonomous mobility in the public sector. The initiative—funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry—will use TIER IV’s Autoware-based technology to operate an autonomous National Diet shuttle service in central Tokyo.
Starting November 20, 2025, a Suzuki Solio robotaxi will run a 3.5-km route connecting government buildings. The pilot is designed to tackle the challenges of dense urban environments while creating standardized specifications and operational processes for future public procurement of autonomous services.
The project will analyze real-world driving data, evaluate operational design domains, and gather user feedback to inform nationwide frameworks for advanced mobility solutions. TIER IV aims to use these insights to help Japan address aging populations, driver shortages, and mobility needs in municipalities beyond major metropolitan areas.
TERN Wins U.S. Army xTechOverwatch Competition
TERN, developer of the AI-powered Independently Derived Positioning System (IDPS), has been named a winner of the U.S. Army’s xTechOverwatch competition, emerging from a field of more than 600 entrants after hands-on Soldier testing in Texas. The event is the Army’s leading platform for evaluating autonomous systems in realistic training environments, and TERN will now begin integrating its technology into Army Transformation in Contact formations for further operational validation in 2026.
The selection highlights growing military concern over contested logistics and the vulnerability of GPS-dependent navigation. Senior defense leaders have warned that Russian and Chinese electronic-warfare capabilities regularly disrupt satellite signals, underscoring the need for resilient, signal-independent navigation tools.
TERN’s IDPS provides precise, real-time vehicle positioning without satellites or external infrastructure, relying solely on maps and onboard sensors. Built by former special operators and AI experts, the system maintains accuracy even in jammed or spoofed environments and has been tested on multiple platforms, including in active conflict zones.
The win caps a year of rapid momentum for TERN, which recently secured $7.5 million in seed funding, earned recognition as one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025, partnered with Arm, and received a CES 2026 Innovation Honoree award. With growing demand across defense, automotive, logistics, robotics, and mobility sectors, the company positions IDPS as a foundational technology for assured navigation in GPS-compromised environments worldwide.
Tesla Granted Arizona Robotaxi Service Permit
Tesla has received a Transportation Network Company (TNC) permit from the Arizona Department of Transportation, allowing the automaker to operate a paid robotaxi service in the state. The permit, granted on November 17, follows Tesla’s application on November 13 and completion of the state’s autonomous vehicle self-certification process.
Arizona, a hub for autonomous vehicle development, already hosts Waymo’s robotaxi service in the Phoenix metro area. With this permit, Tesla can now legally offer ride-hailing services using its autonomous technology, marking a key step toward CEO Elon Musk’s broader robotaxi ambitions in multiple states.
DeepRoute.ai on Track to Equip 200,000 Vehicles
At the Guangzhou Auto Show, DeepRoute.ai announced it is on track to deploy its autonomous driving platforms in over 200,000 production vehicles by the end of 2025, marking a major shift from research and development to large-scale commercialization. The company’s market share in China’s urban autonomous driving segment climbed to nearly 40% in October, and it now ranks second in the mainstream SUV category. DeepRoute.ai operates three business lines—consumer vehicle platforms, robotaxi services, and RoadAGI development—built on a unified Vision-Language-Action (VLA) framework. By year-end, it plans to launch robotaxi operations using consumer-grade vehicles and continue advancing RoadAGI, a general-purpose autonomous intelligence system designed for diverse commercial applications. CEO Maxwell Zhou highlighted the milestone as proof that autonomous driving technology can be deployed safely and efficiently at scale, positioning the company for broader growth in mobility and commercial AI solutions.