Waymo to Send Fully Autonomous Vehicles through San Francisco

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Waymo to Send Fully Autonomous Vehicles through San Francisco
31 Mar 2022
6 min read

News Synopsis

Google's sister company, Waymo LLC, is making the first attempt to send fully self-driving cars to the streets without any human control in a major metropolitan area.

The ride is free and is currently only available to Waymo employees. The company has been operating autonomous cars ever since 2017 in suburban Phoenix, which has a much less challenging traffic environment. In 2020, it opened its rides to the public in Chandler, Arizona.

The company’s move comes nearly two months after a subsidiary of General Motors Co, Cruise started offering driverless rides in public in San Francisco. The rides offered by Cruise are also free and are available only at night.

A spokesperson for Cruise has said that the company plans to expand these hours soon and is also applying to the California Public Utilities Commission to be able to charge the public for rides. The spokesperson also said that Cruise is the only autonomous vehicle company that has applied for the permit till now. 

Waymo is allowed to charge for its rides in California as long as there is a driver present in the car, but it still does not have the permit to offer rides to the general public, a spokeswoman for the company said.

Waymo piloted a robotaxi service with Jaguar I-Paces in San Francisco about six months ago, but these cars still had drivers. The company has been launching in the city for more than a decade and began testing technology in 2009.

Other than Waymo and Cruise, six other companies have also received permits from the state of California to test-drive autonomous vehicles as of last year. Waymo will also start operating in Phoenix only to its employees, making it the only company to offer fully autonomous vehicles in multiple places.

TWN In-Focus