Waymo plans to expand car fleet through new Mesa factory

MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — Waymo is looking to expand its fleet and will be investing in the East Valley to do it. The self-driving car service company announced on its blog on Monday that it’s teaming up with Magna, a Canadian auto parts supplier, to increase production at its new facility in Mesa.

Waymo said the recently built 239,000-square-foot facility is a “multi-million dollar investment” that has created hundreds of jobs to support its growth plans.

“I’m proud to see autonomous vehicles on our streets every day, helping get people where they need to be safely. The new manufacturing facility will enhance this presence, and the local jobs it’s creating will help Arizona’s tech economy continue to rise on the world stage,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a written statement.

Waymo plans to build thousands of fully autonomous Jaguar I-PACEs through the next year, and the Mesa plant will help them do that.

“The Waymo Driver integration plant in Mesa is the epicenter of our future growth plans,” said Ryan McNamara, vice president of operations at Waymo. “With our partners at Magna, we’ve opened a manufacturing site that enables the cost efficiency, flexibility, and capacity to scale our fleet to new heights.”

Waymo said the facility’s design allows the company to integrate its self-driving system, Waymo Driver (sixth generation), with its new vehicle, the Zeekr RT, which was revealed at CES 2025. The plant has an automated assembly line, and when operating at full capacity, the company says it can build tens of thousands of fully autonomous Waymo cars each year.

Waymo said it provides more than 250,000 trips each week across its four markets: Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Next year, the company plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami and Washington, D.C.

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