Waymo Self-Driving Vans And Trucks Coming To New Mexico And Texas
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.
Waymo hasn't shared a ton of details about this roll out, merely announcing it in a tweet today. At the moment, there's no post about it on the Waymo blog, so more specific details aren't available. Check out the tweet Waymo shared today below.
This week, we'll start driving our Chrysler Pacificas and long-haul trucks in Texas and New Mexico. These are interesting and promising commercial routes, and we'll be using our vehicles to explore how the Waymo Driver might be able to create new transportation solutions. pic.twitter.com/uDqKDrGR9b
— Waymo (@Waymo) January 23, 2020
The tweet, despite being brief, tells us a couple of important things. The first is that this roll out is happening this week, and the second is that Google picked New Mexico and Texas for their "interesting and promising commercial routes."
Waymo has been busy in recent months, but most of its activity has been centered around Phoenix, Arizona. The company has been testing its autonomous cars in the area for more than a year, offering up rides to residents by way of iOS and Android apps. Waymo, of course, has been experimenting with its self-driving technology in a variety of markets for a number of years, but one of the key points about Phoenix is that it's offering fully-autonomous rides to users that don't even have a back-up driver in some cases.
While the Phoenix testing seems to mostly be centered around consumer applications, the testing in New Mexico and Texas will apparently be more commercially focused. We'll see what happens from here, as we imagine it won't be long before Waymo shares more about its plans for Texas and New Mexico.