Waymo has 0 need for manufacturing capacity. There are dozens of companies that do that really well at a low margin already that'll be happy for the business. They made a timing mistake by choosing Zeekr for it, which is limiting their expansion at the moment. That's a lot easier/cheaper/quicker to fix by choosing a different partner than by building their own.
zeeker ? Wow that is news.
thought Waymo was partnered with Jaguar-LandRover ?
Waymo also chose more conventional auto makers such as Hyundai. The Zeekr partnership is not an exclusive. https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn...