Waymo

Yesterday, we told you that Alphabet’s Waymo filed a lawsuit against ride hailing service Uber over the theft of key self-driving vehicle technology. Unsurprisingly, Uber has now come out with a statement (via Business Insider) denying that Waymo’s claims have any basis in reality…

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Earlier this afternoon, Alphabet’s Waymo filed a lawsuit against Uber over the theft of a key component related to self-driving vehicles. Former employees working on Google’s self-driving project allegedly stole information before leaving for a start-up that has since been purchased by Uber. Additionally, Waymo alleges that Uber’s current LiDAR tech is near identical to the design pioneered by Google.

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Alphabet’s self-driving car unit hasn’t been a stranger to the inconvenience of constantly rotating staff, but now we’re hearing about one interesting piece of Waymo’s situation in particular that helps explain recent trouble retaining talent. According to a new report out of Bloomberg, early staffers were paid in an unusual way that later severely inflated compensation and led to exodus of early staff…

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Google’s self-driving car efforts were spun-out into an Alphabet company called Waymo back in December. That was followed by the company’s latest self-driving car fleet, Chrysler Pacifica minivans with in-house sensor suits, beginning testing last month.

Now, Vice News has gotten the opportunity to take the latest Waymo self-driving test vehicle for a ride around Mountain View

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The California Department of Motor Vehicles published its Autonomous Vehicle Disengagement Reports for 2016 today, which include statistics on disengagements for all of the companies currently testing self-driving cars in the Golden State. Importantly, Alphabet’s Waymo reported far fewer safety-related disengages and far more miles driven in 2016 compared to 2015, signaling that the company’s system is — as it should — continually getting safer…

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At the North American International Auto Show on Sunday, Waymo CEO John Krafcik went into detail about Google’s self-driving technology and its new in-house built sensor suite. He also revealed that the fleet of Chrysler Pacifica minivans announced last month will hit the road by the end of January (via The Verge).

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Just last week, Google announced that it was breaking its self-driving car project out into its own company, called Waymo. The news was announced during a small press event, with Waymo being described as a “self-driving tech company with mission to make it safe for people and things to get around.”

Now, Bloomberg notes that Honda is in talk to partner with Waymo for its self-driving technology…

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Google has announced today at a small press event in San Francisco, California that its self-driving car project is spinning off into its own company and getting a new name: Waymo. This news follows a report from earlier today that Google has backed off plans for radical self-driving cars in run-up to its launch…

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