Waymo

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.

New motion dataset offers object trajectories and corresponding 3D maps for over 100,000 segments, each 20 seconds long and mined for interesting interactions with cars, people, and more.

Waymo announced a couple of weeks ago it wouldn’t be expanding its robotaxi service in Arizona any time soon. I took that as a sign of Waymo gearing up to start testing in a new city – San Francisco, perhaps. Today, Waymo announced just that. It has begun limited testing in San Francisco, marking its…

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) yesterday released its annual Disengagement Report, which breaks down the number of times a human driver takes over control of an autonomous driving system being tested on the state’s public roads. The DMV released reports for 29 companies for the period from December 2019 to November 2020. Waymo (29,944.69)…

In what appears to be yet another dig at Tesla, Waymo today said it will no longer use the term “self-driving” to describe its vehicles. The Alphabet subsidiary will instead refer to its work as “fully autonomous driving technology.” According to Waymo, this isn’t just a matter of terminology. It said it will use more…

In 2020, autonomous vehicles left other technology applications in the dust. Other areas of robotics receiving funding or merger and acquisition activity included supply chain automation, surgical robots, and quadrupeds.

In a normal week, Boston Dynamics being acquired by Hyundai Motors for nearly $1 billion would be the biggest story. But this week has been anything but normal. This has arguably been the best week ever for the development of autonomous vehicles. Robotaxis, in particular, marked new milestones. Waymo has officially opened up its robotaxi…

Pär-Olof Johannesson, CEO of TerraNet AB, offers his perspective on how the U.S. presidential election will affect the development of autonomous and electric vehicles worldwide, as well as relations with China.

Daimler will integrate Waymo’s autonomous driving technology into a “unique version” of its Freightliner Cascadia semi-trailer trucks.

This week, The Robot Report Podcast talks about construction robotics with Dusty Robotics’ Tessa Lau, learns about prosthetics operating systems from Coapt’s Blair Lock and user Bert Swift, and reviews the latest news.

Waymo, the self-driving vehicle technology unit of Google parent Alphabet, is relaunching and expanding access to its fully driverless robotaxi service around Phoenix. Current members of the Waymo One ride-hailing service will now have access to driverless robotaxis and in a few weeks anyone who downloads the Waymo app will too. In other noteworthy changes,…

The Robot Report Podcast talks with Plus One Robotics about its deal with FedEx, and MassRobotics updates us on how startups are dealing with COVID-19.

Although May 2020 was a relatively slow month for robotics transactions, autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo, Didi Chuxing, and Tesla continued to receive investments.

Remember the $2.25 billion funding round Waymo announced in March? Well, it’s been extended to $3 billion thanks to $750 million in fresh capital from a slew of new investors. The new investors include funds that are managed by T. Rowe Price Associates, Perry Creek Capital, and Fidelity Management and Research Company. Interestingly, T. Rowe…