EE Times Japan Publishes Article on a Waymo Robotaxi Ride

EE Times Japan (ITmedia) published an article about a ride in a Waymo robotaxi on October 26, 2026.

An article about a ride experience provides information from a user’s perspective, but does not show the number of vehicles in operation or usage levels. When evaluating Waymo’s service, the expansion of public access and plans for its fleet should be considered separately from actual operating performance.

The information conveyed by an article about a ride experience is not the same as information showing where and how extensively a service operates. An individual experience cannot be treated as evidence of overall safety or service quality, so reporting on the user’s perspective should be read separately from operating-performance data. See the original article for details of the experience. This distinction overlaps with the difference between “access to a service” and “operating scale and usage” shown in jidounten-lab.com’s report on Waymo opening its driverless robotaxi service to the public in three U.S. cities. Even if the regions or groups able to use a service expand, that alone does not show how many vehicles are actually on the road or how frequently they are used. Nor is a ride article a statistic that fills in these measures of supply and usage. In addition, a report that Waymo plans to expand its fleet fivefold to 20,000 vehicles covered a plan to grow the fleet to 20,000 vehicles, but did not provide details on the timing or allocation. A planned fleet size, the number of vehicles actually in service, the number carrying passengers and individual ride experiences are distinct measures. Rather than treating this article as evidence of operating capacity, it is appropriate to check which of these measures it addresses. Evaluating a robotaxi business involves asking not only how many areas are accessible, but also how extensively vehicles operate and how much they are used. The ride experience at the heart of the article is a different evaluation criterion and, on its own, cannot establish the service’s continuity or scale. Information to check going forward includes how the number of operating vehicles is defined, the distinction between vehicles available for dispatch and those carrying passengers, and usage levels in each region. Avoiding confusion between these measures and personal accounts is also important when comparing Waymo’s service with efforts in other regions.