Waymo has ordered thousands of Chinese-made cars to expand its US robotaxi fleet sparking security concerns on Capitol Hill

Waymo has ordered thousands of Chinese-built electric vehicles to rapidly expand its nationwide robotaxi fleet – an aggressive gambit that’s stoking concerns about national security and fair competition among US lawmakers, The Post has learned.The Alphabet-owned company’s powder-blue “Ojai” vans – now on the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix and aimed for Denver, Las Vegas and San Diego this fall – are a rebranded version of a vehicle made by Zeekr, a unit of the Chinese Communist Party-linked Geely Holding Group.Waymo is on pace to import about 5,100 Ojai vehicles by the end of this year – more than doubling its current fleet, which mostly consists of Jaguar I-Pace SUVs, according to tracking data from research firm MoffettNathanson.The Jaguars are imported from a plant in Austria and outfitted with Waymo’s self-driving tech in Arizona.The deluge is coming despite the fact that the Commerce Department has banned the import or sale of any “connected vehicles” or self-driving software made in China or Russia starting in model year 2027.

Legislation to formalize a ban is currently under consideration in both chambers of Congress.Waymo says it complies with federal rules by only sourcing physical vehicles from Zeekr and then adding its own sensors and self-driving software at a plant in Arizona.However, critics say the tie-up remains a glaring economic and national security risk.Missy Cummings, a former senior safety advisor at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration whom Elon Musk once accused of being “extremely biased against Tesla,” told The Post that Waymo’s “carefully curated” attempt to explain away the Zeekr deal is insufficient.

She also raised doubts about Waymo’s assurances that the Zeekr chassis are totally free of Chinese tech.“I would have to get in and look at the physical construct of the car to know that that’s absolutely true,” said Cummings, director of George Mason University’s A...