Waymo has acquired a massive 5,500-acre proving ground in Arizona owned by Route 14 Investment Partners LLC, a Delaware shell company associated with Apple, according to documents filed in Maricopa County.
Waymo acquired the property, which is near other test sites in Wittman, Arizona, for $220 million. according to the filing. The sale was recorded on June 5. Waymo confirmed the sale to TechCrunch.
The purchase completes Waymo’s already robust network of closed test courses. The Alphabet-owned company still uses the Castle Proving Ground in California as well as the Transportation Research Center in Ohio. Both are dwarfed by the Arizona location.
The Arizona location includes a 115-acre city track, a 35-acre vehicle dynamics area, a four-mile oval track, and a freeway track specially built for autonomous vehicle testing. A Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch that the facility will be used to simulate driving scenarios in a controlled environment to continuously test and improve the performance of the self-driving system. Specifically, the company will support rider-only testing, motion control testing, functional training workflows, and future testing expansion over time.
Apple purchased the property in 2021 for $125 million thereafter rent access to it for years. The facility was previously used as a test facility for Fiat Chrysler. It features different road surfaces, high-speed ovals and helped the Detroit automaker test cars and their components in hot weather.
Apple used it to put prototype vehicles through their paces as the tech company oscillated through different variations of its car project. That effort — known as Project Titan — was eventually scrapped in early 2024 after Apple had spent billions of dollars on it.
The Phoenix Business Journal was the first to spot the document.
Waymo is in the midst of a dramatic expansion of its fleet, which currently stands at nearly 4,000 vehicles. The company recently began offering the first rides in its new van, which is manufactured by Zeekr. Waymo has said it wants to make tens of thousands of robot taxis a year, including the Zeekr van and the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
Zeekr vehicles are shipped to Waymo’s factory in Arizona, where they are then equipped with the company’s self-driving system.
Waymo has a growing commercial footprint in Phoenix and Maricopa County. The company began testing its autonomous vehicle technology in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler in 2017. The area would be Waymo’s first market to offer a commercial robotaxi service.
Waymo has since expanded to more than 10 US cities, including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin and Atlanta.
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