One of the many companies working on getting autonomous automobiles on the roads in California is Waymo. The company has been testing autonomous cars in the San Francisco Bay Area since early 2009. That year, Waymo completed its first 1000 autonomous miles within the state.
Waymo is drawing a line in the sand for driverless terminology, announcing today that it will no longer refer to its vehicles as "self-driving" and arguing that the industry needs more consistency in how it refers to cars that can operate themselves. Though the language change may seem slight, the Alphabet-owned company concedes, it's actually key to making sure human drivers know just what is and isn't required from them in future vehicles.
Waymo is opening two new autonomous vehicle facilities, including a dense urban playground for its self-driving passenger cars as they refine their human-replacing technology. The Alphabet-owned company, spun out from Google's labs, currently operates a ride-hailing program in Phoenix, AZ, Waymo One, but has visions of far broader applications for driverless cars and trucks.
Waymo and Daimler Trucks are teaming up on autonomous haulage, aiming to build and sell a production self-driving truck in the US. The collaboration will see Waymo contribute the driverless tech that is powering its Waymo One autonomous ride-hailing program, which recently came out of closed beta in Phoenix, Arizona.
Waymo's driverless taxi service is opening up to the public, exiting beta in Phoenix, AZ and allowing Waymo One members to book the autonomous minivans. The Waymo Driver, as the Alphabet company describes its self-driving tech, has until now been providing rides for a small subset of Waymo One users, and Waymo has been careful to prevent those riders from talking about the experience.
Waymo and Chrysler have been working together since 2016 to create autonomous vehicles. One of the vehicles resulting from that partnership is the L4-ready Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan. Waymo has announced that it and Chrysler are strengthening their partnership in several essential ways.
Waymo and Volvo Car Group announced an expanded partnership that is intended to create a collaboration enabling easy integration of vehicles with the Waymo Driver. The integration will make the vehicles well-suited to ride-hailing, local delivery, tracking, and personal car ownership. Waymo is now the exclusive global L4 partner for the Volvo Car Group.
Waymo has thrown open its latest self-driving car data set, inviting autonomous vehicle researchers to take part in a set of competitions based on the plentiful data gathered by its driverless fleet. The Waymo Open Dataset Challenges comes as the Google spin-off adds 800 new segments to its multi-sensor dataset, and it could come as a good distraction if you're stuck at home because of coronavirus self-isolation.
Waymo has taken the wraps off its fifth-generation Waymo Driver system, detailing the technology that works to power self-driving cars and protect the people on the road. The latest version of Waymo Driver has been live in the San Francisco Bay Area for months, according to the company, which explains that the latest hardware sensor suite means its Jaguar I-Paces electric vehicles 'look a little different' from its past cars.
Waymo has announced the fruits of its first external investment funding round, revealing that it raised $2.25 billion from investors that include AutoNation and Andreessen Horowitz. The company says this investment follows a number of big milestones, including driving its vehicles on more than 20 million miles of public roads on top of another 10 billion miles in simulation.
Autonomous car company Waymo has announced a new partnership with the delivery company UPS. This is said to be 'a first-of-its-kind deal' involving Waymo Driver, the company's self-driving car tech. As part of this deal, Waymo Driver will help UPS deliver packages in Chrysler Pacifica vans, though the deliveries will be limited to just the UPS hub in Tempe, Arizona, as well as the Metro Phoenix region.
Alphabet's Waymo announced today that it's expanding to new markets, revealing that it's bringing some of its vehicles to Texas and parts of New Mexico. More specifically, those living in Texas and New Mexico can expect to see Waymo's Chrysler Pacificas and long-haul trucks on the road in the near future.