Waymo acquires Arizona proving ground from Apple for $220 million

Waymo has acquired a 5,500-acre proving ground—a facility used for testing autonomous vehicles—in Arizona for $220 million. According to documents filed with Maricopa County, the transaction was recorded on June 5. The seller of the property was Route 14 Investment Partners LLC, a Delaware shell company associated with Apple. Located near other proving grounds in Wittman, Arizona, the massive site significantly expands Waymo’s testing footprint. While the Alphabet-owned company continues to use the Castle Proving Ground in California and the Transportation Research Center in Ohio, both of those facilities are dwarfed by this new Arizona location.

The newly acquired facility features specialized testing infrastructure, including:

• A 115-acre city course
• A 35-acre vehicle dynamics area
• A four-mile oval track

According to a Waymo spokesperson, “The facility will be used to simulate driving scenarios in a controlled environment to continuously test and improve the performance of its self-driving system. Specifically, the company will support rider-only testing, motion control testing, operational training workflows, and future testing expansion over time.”

Apple originally purchased the property in 2021 for $125 million after renting access to it for years. The tech giant used the site to test prototype vehicles for Project Titan, Apple’s defunct autonomous car project, on which it spent billions of dollars before scuttling the effort in early 2024. Prior to Apple’s ownership, the property was used as a test facility by Fiat Chrysler.

The acquisition supports Waymo’s ongoing efforts to scale its fleet, which currently stands at close to 4,000 vehicles. The company has stated its goal is to produce tens of thousands of robotaxis per year, including vehicles from manufacturers like Zeekr and Hyundai. The Zeekr vehicles are sent to Waymo’s Arizona factory, where they are outfitted with the company’s self-driving system. Waymo has a deep history in the region, having first tested its technology in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler in 2017. Since then, the company has expanded its operations to more than 10 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, and Atlanta.

Why it matters

This acquisition provides Waymo with a dedicated, large-scale environment to simulate complex driving scenarios, which is essential for scaling its autonomous fleet beyond current testing limits.