WeRide Eyes Australia, South Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia for Robotaxi Expansion

Alphabet subsidiaries Waymo and Isomorphic Labs are pursuing major new funding moves in autonomous driving and AI drug discovery. Waymo has lined up US$5b in debt financing to support an international expansion of its robotaxi operations outside the US, while Isomorphic Labs is reported to be targeting a US$40b to US$50b valuation in its next capital raise focused on AI driven drug design. Waymo's US$5b term loan pushes more of Alphabet's AI buildout onto subsidiary-level borrowing rather than Alphabet's own cash, adding fixed obligations to a capital intensive project where timelines and regulatory paths are less clear than core Search or Cloud. Isomorphic Labs pursuing a US$40b to US$50b valuation highlights how far Alphabet is willing to stretch its AI ambitions beyond advertising and enterprise software, leaning into the reward side of future AI monetisation while magnifying the risk analysts flag around capital intensity and non cash earnings.

Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives reiterated his Outperform rating and $500 price target on Tesla, arguing autonomy, robotaxis and Optimus humanoid robots will increasingly drive the company's value. "We view Tesla as one of the clearest ways to own physical AI in the public markets," Ives wrote, adding that investors valuing Tesla primarily as an automaker are pricing a fleet rather than the platform being built on top of it. He calls Full Self-Driving the bridge between today's car business and tomorrow's autonomy business, with an attach rate above 55% on new North American EV sales, while Tesla's robotaxi service now operates in six US cities with paid miles approaching 2.5 million and a 5,000-vehicle Nevada permit gives it a path to a much larger fleet. Using a sum-of-the-parts valuation based on 2028 revenue estimates, Ives values Tesla's existing businesses at about $165 per share as a car company and assigns the remaining $335 to autonomy and Optimus, meaning roughly two-thirds of his price target rests on businesses still in their early stages. He flags risks including that only 45 Cybercabs are authorized for driverless operation in Texas, that Tesla expects about 2,500 vehicles in Nevada in year one, half of what the permit allows, and that NHTSA issued a Special Order on Cybercab's self-certification with Tesla's sworn response due September 30th.

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle technology company under Google parent Alphabet, has closed a $5 billion loan from a group of high-profile lenders including PIMCO, Blackstone, and Sixth Street. The debt financing is Waymo's first and comes as the company accelerates its commercial expansion within existing cities while pushing into new markets in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Other lenders in the $5 billion loan include Capital Group, Loomis Sayles, T. Rowe Price, Apollo, Blue Owl, Diameter Capital Partners, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity Management & Research Company, HPS Investment Partners, and Oaktree, with Goldman Sachs serving as sole lead bookrunner. Until now, Waymo has relied on capital from its parent company and outside investors, including a $16 billion equity raise in February that pushed its valuation to $126 billion, a $5.6 billion Series C round in 2024, $2.5 billion in 2021, and $3.2 billion in 2020. Waymo now offers robotaxi services in 15 markets and is testing in London and Tokyo, though its growth has drawn scrutiny from regulators, including a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation into illegal behavior around school buses and a National Transportation Safety Board probe after robotaxis were spotted illegally passing stopped school buses in at least two states.

Uber and Chinese autonomous vehicle maker Pony.ai plan to launch a robotaxi service in London, with testing of Pony.ai's Gen-7 robotaxis set to begin in the coming weeks. The move expands a partnership that began in May 2025 in the Middle East and has since grown to Europe, where the two companies plan to deploy 2,000 robotaxis, starting with Croatia's capital, Zagreb. In August 2026, the companies launched an autonomous ride-hailing service in Zagreb with a third partner, Verne, under a model in which Pony.ai supplies the autonomous driving system and the Arcfox Alpha T5 robotaxi developed with Chinese automaker BAIC, Verne owns and operates the fleet, and Uber provides access to its ride-hailing network. The London service will follow a similar model, though the companies have not said who will own and operate the fleet. Pony.ai won't be Uber's only robotaxi partner in London: Uber has also partnered with and invested in British self-driving startup Wayve, which in February 2026 raised $1.2 billion in a funding round backed by Microsoft, Nvidia and Uber, with the total potentially reaching $1.5 billion through an additional $300 million from Uber contingent on Wayve deploying robotaxis starting in London. Uber expects to offer AV trips in as many as 15 cities globally by the end of 2026, roughly split between U.S. and international markets, and has struck deals with more than 30 autonomous vehicle companies.

XPENG has officially named its Robotaxi brand XPENG YOYO and opened autonomous driving online registration to the public in China through invitation codes, with a dedicated page live on the company's official website. XPENG Robotaxi is China's first fully in-house developed Robotaxi to achieve pre-loaded mass production, and the company said the move marks the transition from technical validation into a new stage of marketization and industrialization. Each vehicle carries four in-house Turing AI chips delivering 3,000 TOPS, which XPENG calls the world's highest in-vehicle compute, and runs on its VLA2.0 large model without HD maps or LiDAR. The English name was chosen for global brand recognition, and Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng said XPENG positions its Robotaxi as a technology provider and ecosystem enabler, generating revenue through hardware sales, services, and commission sharing while entrusting offline operations to global partners. In May 2026 the mass-produced Robotaxi rolled off the production line in Guangzhou, in July it completed the full chain from online ride-hailing to automated pickup and drop-off, and in August XPENG obtained Guangzhou's remote testing qualification for intelligent connected vehicles on Class I, II, and III test roads. XPENG had previously launched paid internal testing at just 1 renminbi per ride to validate the payment process and service workflow.