Alphabet’s Waymo project has been running in San Francisco for some time, overall with plenty of success, but also with a few stumbles. This week, one Waymo vehicle struck a pedestrian, but the company has now confirmed this was a case of human error.
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Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle project is expanding in the coming weeks, as Waymo Via is pulling on its partnership with UPS to test freight truck deliveries in large Class 8 trucks.
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As it continues expanding driving efforts in cities like San Francisco, Waymo today announced that it will bring its vehicles to NYC to train on the busy streets of Manhattan.
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Self-driving cars may one day be the future, but as it stands today, they’re still figuring out the conditions of roads. This includes roads in San Francisco, where Alphabet has been testing out its Waymo cars for quite some time now. Lately, though, some residents of the city have noticed that tons of Waymo vehicles have kept ending up in the same dead-end street.
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Alphabet wants to compete with the likes of Lyft and Uber, but it’s been very slow to expand “Waymo One” outside of Phoenix. That’s now changing with the launch of Waymo One Trusted Tester in San Francisco.
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For the past few years, Waymo has been operating in Phoenix, Arizona, as a fully autonomous ride-hailing service. Those in the Metro Phoenix area will now see Waymo One as an option in Google Maps.
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The head of Alphabet’s self-driving division surprisingly announced today that he’s leaving the company after five and a half years. Waymo will now be led by co-CEOs.
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One of the biggest arguments for autonomous vehicles is increasing road safety. Waymo today released a study that used simulations to show how its cars would have responded to real-world fatal crash scenarios.
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All of Waymo’s passenger vehicles to date have been painted white, thus accentuating the various autonomous sensors. That might be changing in the future as Waymo CEO John Krafcik this evening shared a very sleek Jaguar I-Pace in black.
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After successfully opening Waymo One as a public driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Waymo is beginning to test autonomous vehicles with riders in San Francisco.
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Ahead of his term ending, President Trump late this evening issued 143 clemencies. One of the pardons was for Anthony Levandowski, who was convicted of stealing Google’s self-driving technology before departing for Uber.
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Unlike other ride-hailing services, all the vehicles currently used for Waymo One are identical. Waymo’s solution for differentiating cars is to add a screen behind the windshield that displays a custom two-letter code.
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Since 2017, Waymo has offered a limited access to a sometimes “fully driverless” ride-hailing service, Waymo One, to select residents of Phoenix. Starting today, Waymo’s fully driverless rides will gradually become available to all customers in the Phoenix area.
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Besides operating a ride-hailing service, Waymo is offering its self-driving technology to carmakers. The latest deal sees Waymo partner with the Volvo Car Group.
Earlier this week, Waymo revealed a $2.25 billion external investment round to help expand its offerings. That expansion is also being aided on the technological front, with Waymo today detailing 5th-generation self-driving sensors.
As of early 2020, Waymo self-driving vehicles have driven 20 million miles on public roads. That makes for vast amounts of recorded sensor data to improve the autonomous system. Waymo today detailed its Content Search tool and database with billions of encountered road objects.
One year ago, Waymo launched a public self-driving ride service in Phoenix, Arizona. To mark that anniversary, Waymo One is getting an iOS app, while the Alphabet division shared usage details for the Lyft/Uber competitor.
Ahead of more and more self-driving cars appearing on the road, Waymo today published an instructional video on how first responders should interact with its autonomous vehicles in case of roadside emergencies.
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Last year, the legal saga between Waymo and Uber came to a close following a $250 million settlement. An “independent software expert” was installed to ensure that the ride-hailing company does not leverage any Alphabet tech for its self-driving cars. Uber may now have to license from Waymo or redesign its vehicles to avoid any further trouble.
Waymo One launched late last year in Phoenix, Arizona as the first public self-driving car service. However, those rides still have a human safety driver behind the wheel that is ready to take over in case of emergencies. The Alphabet company is now getting ready to test “completely driverless Waymo cars.”
Early last year, Waymo reached a nearly quarter billion dollar settlement with Uber that ended an ongoing trial over stolen self-driving technology. Federal prosecutors today charged former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski with theft of the former company’s trade secrets.
Alphabet’s Waymo has been running its One program in Phoenix for the past several months, with several perks for riders along the way. Today, it’s been revealed that Waymo has been testing out Wi-Fi for riders within its self-driving vehicles.
As Waymo continues its push for a driverless future, the Alphabet company is trying to expand to more regions. This week, the state of California has granted Waymo a permit to transport passengers in its self-driving vehicles.