Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company that has spent years proving its driverless taxi model on American streets, has announced plans to bring that technology to Tokyo by 2027 through partnerships with Japanese companies. The move places a distinctly Western technological ambition into one of the world's most demanding urban environments — a city whose regulatory rigor and driving complexity have kept autonomous services at arm's length. If the 2027 target holds, it will mark not merely a business expansion but a test of whether driverless technology has matured enough to cross the cultural an