Waymo

Waymo is a leading developer of autonomous driving technology, with public robotaxi services up and running in Phoenix and San Francisco.

Waymo began giving fully autonomous rides with no safety drivers to members of its trusted tester program in downtown Phoenix.

Watch a Waymo robotaxi with no safety drivers inside the vehicle safely react to a truck blowing through a red light in Phoenix.

Waymo also has plans to expand its fully driverless robotaxi service to downtown Phoenix in the coming months.

The permits require both companies to have a safety driver present in the vehicles at all times, however.

Part of what makes Waymo’s system successful is its millions of miles of real world and simulated driving experience.

Today, Nuro announced it will be delivering with 7-Eleven in Mountain View, California, and Waymo announced its grocery delivery service will launch in 2022.

The trucks are driving autonomously on highways between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. A human takes control once a truck exits the highway.

Waymo’s robotaxis face unique challenges driving in San Francisco, where there’s a one in three chance of fog every day.

Waymo’s vehicles will be driven manually at all times. The goal is to improve its autonomous driving technology. Waymo said “we don’t have any immediate plans to launch [a robotaxi service] in New York City.”

From cyclists riding against the flow of traffic to nudging over to let another car pass on a narrow street, watch a handful of typical events Waymo’s autonomous vehicles deal with in San Francisco.

According to Waymo, it has nothing to do with its autonomous driving technology being confused, a mapping issue, or a maneuver it’s trying to perfect.

The approval from the California DMV does, however, come with major caveats.

In this weeks episode, Steve and Mike discuss the expansion of Waymo service into SF, the recent Locus Robotics milestone – and Steve interviews RightHand Robotics CEO, Yaro Tenzer.

“We’re winding down our commercial LiDAR business as we maintain our focus on developing and deploying our Waymo Driver across our Waymo One (ride-hailing) and Waymo Via (delivery) units.”

The all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles are equipped with Waymo’s fifth-generation autonomous driving system. All rides will include a human safety driver.

Waymo is opening an office in Pittsburgh, joining a group of competitors already well established in the Steel City.

Waymo provides a glimpse at its SimulationCity software environment that it uses to test and validate driving algorithms.

This is the second funding round for Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. In 2020, Waymo raised $3 billion.

Waymo One ride hailing service is now visible as an ride-hailing service option to Google Maps users searching for directions within the Phoenix AZ, Waymo service area.

Joel Johnson, the passenger in the Waymo robotaxi that was confused multiple times by construction cones, discusses what went wrong.

Watch a Waymo One robotaxi in Chandler, Ariz. gets confused multiple times by traffic cones – and evade human assistance.