In the US, the auto industry is synonymous with Michigan. Auto manufacturing has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state and built an economic engine that helps fuel the entire country. Today, Waymo is excited to announce that we’ll grow our business in Michigan, as the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) voted to approve our effort to establish our manufacturing presence to build our self-driving vehicles in the state, creating hundreds of jobs along the way.

Waymo develops hardware and software in-house so that our self-driving technology works as a seamless, single system. A vital part of that process is integrating our self-driving system into the vehicles we purchase for our fleet, including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Jaguar Land Rover. Thanks to our collaboration with MEDC, we’ll bring new job opportunities to the talented citizens of Southeast Michigan. The Great Lakes State is one we already know and love, with a talented workforce and excellent snowy conditions for our cars to test. Our local engineers are already hard at work outfitting our Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans with Waymo technology, and now we’re looking forward to expanding our roots.

Waymo will first identify a facility in Southeast Michigan and, over the next few years, aim to create hundreds of local jobs in the community. We’ll be looking for engineers, operations experts, and fleet coordinators to join our team and help assemble and deploy our self-driving cars. This will be the world’s first factory 100%-dedicated to the mass production of L4 autonomous vehicles.

As we begin to commercialize our business and vehicle supply grows, we’re laying the foundation for a scalable, robust vehicle integration plan, starting in Michigan. We’re partnering with Magna to help integrate Waymo’s self-driving system into our fleet of different vehicles, with a team hired exclusively for our work.

Thank you to the MEDC for embracing the opportunity of self-driving cars and paving the way for us to expand our partnership with the people of Michigan.