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
Waymo announced that it will soon begin giving autonomous robotaxi rides, with no automation specialists in the vehicles, in San Francisco.
Autonomous vehicles have major challenges. But declaring the technology dead after Argo AI’s shutdown is foolish.
Waymo One is opening up to the public in downtown Phoenix without any autonomous specialists behind the wheel.
Members of the company’s Trusted Tester Program can now hail one of its all-electric Jaguar I-PACE equipped with a fifth-generation Waymo Driver 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for rides between downtown Phoenix and Phoenix Sky Harbor.
Waymo released its Response Time and Collision Avoidance Benchmarking papers to provide clarity on the benchmarks it has for its vehicles.
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.