Ollie sets November 6 shutdown for privacy-focused AI assistant
Co-founder and CEO Bill Lennon cited growing competition and greater difficulty raising capital. Customers will get data-export and refund instructions.
Toyota and Waymo plan autonomous bZ4X tests in Japan in 2027
Britain is slated for later deployment, while the partners have not identified other potential markets or set timelines for them.
Toyota Motor and Alphabet's Waymo said on October 30 that they plan to start testing self-driving bZ4X electric vehicles in Japan in 2027. Deployment in Britain is planned for subsequent years, with other markets also possible.
Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said the Toyota partnership would help bring its autonomous-driving technology into large-scale commercial operation. The initial focus will be Japan and Britain, both right-hand-drive markets. He said the partners envision expanding further but had no additional countries or schedules to announce.
The vehicles will be manufactured at Toyota's Takaoka factory in central Japan, which will also handle installation of Waymo's driving hardware. Toyota Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima said operations would begin with a small fleet. The partners gave neither an exact vehicle count nor locations within Japan.
Nakajima said Toyota wanted experience in Japan before seeking wider opportunities, noting that it also produces left-hand-drive models, including the bZ4X. Separately, Dolgov said Waymo still intends to run a Japanese pilot in 2027 with Jaguar I-PACE vehicles, which it is already testing there. The partners first disclosed plans to explore an autonomous-vehicle platform collaboration in April 2025.