The Wall Street Journal reports Waymo Orders Up to 20,000 Jaguar SUVs for Driverless Fleet.

As Uber Technologies Inc. reels from a fatal crash involving one of its autonomous vehicles, rival Waymo is moving ahead, buying as many as 20,000 Jaguar vehicles for its robot fleet.

The deal, announced Tuesday, is potentially worth more than $1 billion, and escalates Waymo's effort to put vehicles on public roads without human drivers behind the wheel.

Waymo will add its driverless technology to the new Jaguar I-Pace all-electric sport-utility vehicle and it said it would begin testing this year before deploying the SUVs in 2020. The companies said as many as 20,000 of the SUVs will be built in the first two years, and more vehicles could be purchased after that.