Waymo’s New Agreement With Hyundai Raises Questions About China

Soon you could spot Waymo self-driving tech successful Hyundai cars. The autonomous driving tech developer Waymo said this week that it would spouse with the Korean automaker Hyundai to equip a fleet of its electrical vehicles with self-driving technology. The vehicles, modified Ioniq 5s, volition deed the roadworthy arsenic portion of Waymo’s self-driving ride-hail work successful precocious 2025, the companies said.

In a statement, Hyundai Motor Company president and planetary COO José Muñoz called the statement a “first step” successful the 2 firms’ partnership. “We are actively exploring further opportunities for collaboration,” helium said—opening up the anticipation that Waymo self-driving tech could 1 time beryllium installed connected Hyundai rider vehicles.

However, the multinational concern is the latest to punctual questions astir however Waymo, arguably the world’s astir palmy autonomous-driving company, volition grip a planetary realignment of the automotive industry.

China’s new dominance successful car manufacturing and export has disquieted different planetary automakers, immoderate of whom person argued that the state has unfair commercialized advantages. Over the past year, Western countries person built firmer commercialized walls to forestall the incursion of inexpensive Chinese electrical and autonomous vehicles. Last month, the US finalized rules that dramatically increased tariffs against Chinese-made EVs and artillery materials.

The US Commerce Department besides past period proposed a rule that would prohibition immoderate Chinese- and Russian-made automotive hardware and bundle from the US, with an accent connected exertion that enables autonomy. Just this week, the European Union voted to hike tariffs against Chinese-made electrical vehicles.

Interestingly, Waymo insists that a concern with Chinese-owned automaker Zeekr is inactive on. The deal, announced successful precocious 2021, has seen Zeekr purpose-build roomier autonomous minivans for the Alphabet subsidiary that are besides little costly to manufacture. The Zeekr conveyance officially made its debut successful San Francisco successful June, though Waymo says it’s inactive successful investigating and is not yet portion of its nationalist ride-hail fleet.

Zeekr is owned by Chinese automaker Geely, though its plan halfway and 1 of its probe and improvement facilities are successful Gothenburg, Sweden. The Swedish metropolis is besides the office of bulk Geely-owned automakers Volvo and Polestar, an all-electric premium automaker.

In an email connected Friday, Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli wrote that the Hyundai Ioniq 5s “will not regenerate immoderate of our different conveyance platforms,” and said the institution is “hard astatine enactment validating” the latest mentation of Waymo’s tech connected the Zeekr platform.

In proposing caller rules targeting Chinese-made car bundle and hardware, the US authorities argued that specified tech installed connected US vehicles could create a semipermanent nationalist information issue. “Imagine if determination were thousands oregon hundreds of thousands of Chinese-connected vehicles connected American roads that could beryllium instantly and simultaneously disabled by idiosyncratic successful Beijing,” US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said earlier this year.

But successful public comments submitted to the Commerce Department successful April, Waymo representatives insisted that, contempt its concern with the Chinese automaker, China has thing to bash with the captious tech of the Zeekr-made robotaxi. “The AV-ready basal vehicles being provided to Waymo person nary driving automation oregon telematics capabilities built into them,” the institution wrote, saying that lone US-based Waymo unit instal autonomous exertion onto vehicles astatine an American factory. The institution said that, erstwhile operating successful the US, the vehicles cannot remotely pass with the vehicle’s manufacturer—Zeekr.