One week, four directions in Waymo's announcements: Las Vegas and Tokyo on Monday, Europe through the insurer on Tuesday, Singapore on Thursday.
Singapore is the most distant of them, and not only on the map.
Fact
The facts: on 17 September 2026 Waymo announced it is coming to Singapore in partnership with the Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Authority. The first fleet of electric Jaguar I-PACE cars arrives in the coming months; in 2027 trained specialists will drive manually to adapt the system to local road geometry and monsoon weather; the commercial service through the Waymo app is planned for 2028. The company cites over 20 million fully autonomous trips, over 300 million km and 94 per cent fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers in the US cities where it operates. On 15 September Waymo and Allianz Partners announced a partnership on insurance, claims handling and safety research for Waymo fleets in Europe, starting with the planned deployments in London and Munich; in that announcement Waymo cites over half a million paid trips a week in the US and 16 times fewer serious injury crashes in the cities where it operates.
Why manual driving first
Singapore has monsoons, dense urban streets and a road network the car has never driven. Waymo sets aside 2027 for a readiness phase that starts with manual driving before it takes on a rider. It is slow and it is right.
A readiness year is the price of a foreign city.
The insurance in Europe is the other half of the same thought. A robotaxi that crashes in London is not a technical but a legal question: who pays, under which law and within how many days. Waymo is sorting out that answer before it has carried its first rider there.
And a note on the numbers. In this week's announcements safety is given in four ways: 94 per cent fewer serious injury crashes in Vegas, 94 per cent fewer injury crashes in the Singapore announcement, 16 times fewer serious injury crashes with Allianz, and over 15 times safer with Tokyo. All of them come from Waymo's own data. They agree in direction, not in meaning, and it is worth knowing that before you quote them.
Official primary sources
Waymo Blog - Singapore, Next Stop: Bringing Scalable, Safe Autonomous Mobility to the Lion City, 17.09.2026Waymo Blog - Building Waymo's Risk and Insurance Foundation in Europe with Allianz Partners, 15.09.2026Waymo Blog - Vegas, Deal Us In! We're welcoming riders today, 14.09.2026Waymo Blog - Opening our doors to Tokyo riders in 2027 with Nihon Kotsu and GO, 14.09.2026The visual is generated code-art, no third-party images.