Waymo has performed coy for years about precisely what number of Jaguar I-Tempo EVs are in its autonomous fleet — a determine that covers autos utilized in testing and industrial robotaxi operations. On Monday, the Alphabet firm lastly supplied a peek on the industrial facet of the fleet.

Waymo stated Monday, as part of a larger announcement, that it has greater than 1,500 industrial robotaxis in operation. And work is underway to develop it by means of a multi-million-dollar funding with Magna to construct greater than 2,000 autonomous I-Tempo autos at a brand new manufacturing unit in Arizona.

Waymo has labored with Magna for years, particularly at a now closed facility in Detroit. The brand new 239,000-square-foot manufacturing unit within the Phoenix suburb of Mesa is strategically positioned within the one among Waymo’s robotaxi markets and near its different service areas throughout San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin.

A Waymo spokesperson advised TechCrunch the corporate checked out different places, however finally it selected Mesa for its proximity to different markets and since the constant climate made it ideally suited for the validation course of required earlier than the robotaxis can be utilized by the general public.

Waymo stated in a weblog submit saying the manufacturing unit that it acquired closing supply from Jaguar earlier this 12 months. From right here, contract builder Magna and Waymo take over to combine the self-driving system into the autos. Waymo emphasised a brand new course of designed to hurry up the production-to-validation-to-public use course of, noting that the AVs can drive themselves out of the ability and straight into service.

“In actual fact, these autos can decide up their first public passengers lower than half-hour after leaving the manufacturing unit,” Waymo stated in its weblog submit. The corporate stated that autos supposed for different cities may be deployed into public service in a matter of hours after being shipped to their native depot.

The Mesa manufacturing unit is designed to deal with different car platforms, notably to combine the sixth-generation of Waymo’s self-driving system into the Zeekr RT later this 12 months.

The plant will introduce an automatic meeting line and different efficiencies over time, in response to the corporate, which famous that the plant can be able to constructing tens of 1000’s of absolutely autonomous Waymo autos per 12 months when working at full capability.