If you live in Australia, and are excited by the future possibilities of autonomous vehicles, you’ve probably watched international rollouts and wondered, when is it our turn?
The most significant effort towards autonomy in Australia is Tesla’s FSD (supervised) which is racing towards an unsupervised future. While that’ll take regulatory approval to make a reality on Australian roads, they may not have the market to themselves.
In a new article from The Sizzle, a leaked confidential email to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King MP, suggests Waymo have big plans down under in 2026.
The heading is ‘Confidential Briefing on Waymo’s 2026 Plans in Australia‘ and goes on to request a confidential meeting with the minister, on behalf of Waymo. The author describes Waymo as the ‘World’s Most Experience Driver’.
This is the first indication we’ve seen from Waymo that they want to expand to Australia, although the company has announced international expansion plans to cities like London and Tokyo.
Before we get too excited Waymo have provided an official statement, confirming there are no official timelines for a local launch.
“While we are eager to bring the Waymo Driver to more people in more places, we do not have specific plans or a timeline to share regarding Waymo’s future in Australia at this time.”
.– Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher
There’s probably a very good reason for this – regulation.
Australia’s regulators are still moving through a process that begun 4 years ago, way back in February 2022. At a meeting of the Infrastructure and Transport Ministers from around the country, they decided that the future Automated Vehicle Safety Law will be implemented through Commonwealth law.
This decision means we will have a national approach to approving fully autonomous vehicles on our roads, which makes sense, given we don’t have checkpoints on our state borders.
At the time when I covered this, I said their timeline of delivering Automated Vehicle Safety Law in 2026 was going to be too late and I was right.
Autonomous vehicles are operating internationally and are ready to scale globally with data showing vastly improved safety over human drivers.
The Road to Autonomous Vehicles on Australian Roads
Autonomous and driverless vehicles on Australian roads, there’s a number of things that need to occur.
- Automated Vehicle Safety Law (AVSL): The proposed Commonwealth (national) law designed to ensure the in-service safety of Automated Driving System (ADS)s. Enacting these changes requires a combination of federal (Commonwealth) legislation and updates to all state and territory laws to create a complete national framework.
- Automated Driving System Entity (ADSE) registered. An ADSE is a corporation that is certified under the AVSL as being responsible for the safety of an ADS in a specific vehicle or vehicles throughout its design life.
- ADSE submits a request to certify a Automated Driving System (ADS). This is combination of hardware and software that is capable of performing the entire dynamic driving task (steering, accelerating, braking, and monitoring the environment) on a sustained basis.
- ADSE completes a Automated Driving System Entity certification and waits for approval, the timeline of which is not clear.
Given the above is still a work in progress, I’m not surprised that Waymo, or any other autonomous company is unable to provide a fixed timeline for release.
If we wind the clock back to when NTC held their consultation a couple of years ago, Waymo was one of the companies that provided feedback.
On the proposal that remote operation (if required) should be located in Austrlaia, Waymo suggested that some remote functions can feasibly be performed from any location, and the future regulatory framework should distinguish between types of remote functions.
Via The Sizzle.
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