Waymo is a California-based autonomous driving technology development company. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Google began its development of autonomous vehicle technology in 2009 at its X lab, which at the time was run by co-founder Sergey Brin.
The project was launched by Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) and Anthony Levandowski. In December 2016, the unit was renamed Waymo and spun-off into a new division in Alphabet.
Waymo now operates a commercial self-driving taxi service in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area. In October 2020, it expanded the service to the public. At the time, it was the only self-driving commercial service that operates without safety backup drivers in the vehicle.
Waymo also is developing its technology for use in other vehicles, including delivery vans and Class 8 tractor-trailers for delivery and logistics.
Recent News Items
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.