Alphabet Inc. unit Waymo said it has begun offering driverless rides to employees in San Francisco.
see photosThe rear window of the Waymo Chrysler Pacifica Robotaxi is seen while parked at a Target store
Alphabet Inc. unit Waymo said Wednesday that it has begun offering driverless rides to employees in San Francisco, speeding up a race with General Motors’ co-backed rival Cruise to commercialize the technology in the dense city. Is.
Waymo introduced autonomous ride-hailing for employees in downtown Phoenix with safety drivers behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up for public testing.
“Operating fully autonomously in a variety of markets — in addition to Waymo’s growing trucking operations — is an important validator of the scalability of Waymo’s operations and technology,” it said in a statement.
A self-driving technology pioneer, Waymo launched the first US driverless taxi service in 2020, a decade after it was born in 2009 as a project inside Google. While it delivers paid rides to hundreds of people a week using Chrysler minivans, Waymo’s service hasn’t expanded beyond suburban Phoenix areas which cover about 50 square miles (129.5 square kilometers). [nL1N2R80CD]
Waymo began offering autonomous rides with safety drivers on board to a limited number of people in San Francisco in August, using sensor-equipped Jaguar electric vehicles like spinning lidar on top.
Waymo needs to obtain at least two more permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco.
Waymo declined to comment on whether it had applied for a permit.
Cruise is already offering completely driverless rides to employees and members of the public in San Francisco. The company is seeking CPUC approval for the commercial driverless service, with the goal of getting permission this year.
Self-driving technology firms, which have attracted billions of dollars in investment, face the challenges of scaling up their technology, after missing their earlier goals of launching commercial services.
(Reporting by Hyunju Jin; Editing by Mark Porter and Richard Chang)
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