Waymo’s completely driverless taxi is coming to Los Angeles, and will be open to the public starting this week. We got an advance ride in these self-driving electric cars and a sense of what this level 4 system can do in one of the more chaotic driving situations in a city full of chaotic driving situations: a Santa Monica and Venice Beach weekend.
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A select group of protestors in the San Francisco Bay area are demobilizing robotaxi EVs operated by companies like Waymo and Cruise by placing orange construction cones over their sensors. While opposition to this technology has been present in small doses for years, the resistance against autonomous vehicles has recently gotten more press following a recent vote to expand the services in California. Is this a fear of autonomy or just a fear of change in general?
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Waymo received final approval to operate its driverless taxis in California last week and will start charging for its driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco starting Monday, August 21.
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Rideshare juggernaut Uber has signed a multi-year strategic partnership with robotaxi developer Waymo, offering driverless rides and deliveries to customers across the former’s platform. The new partnership could bring massive scale to Waymo’s driverless tech, while offering an enormous pool of potential customers.
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Robotaxi developer Waymo is taking passenger and bystander safety to another level using the same technology that already allows its fleet of vehicles to offer autonomous rides around major metropolitan areas. Waymo has now added new audio and visual alerts to inform passengers if a cyclist or other passerby is approaching the exit door.
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Robotaxi developer Waymo will soon be operating an all-electric fleet of fifth-generation Waymo Driver as it is retiring its fourth-generation tech utilized on Chrysler Pacifica hybrids. Looking ahead, Waymo will deploy the Jaguar I-Pace EVs as it continues to develop future autonomous vehicles with Geely and its all-electric ZEEKR brand.
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Robotaxi developer Waymo announced that this past January, it surpassed 1 million miles of autonomous driving with no human present in the vehicle. Waymo competitor Cruise also recently reached the autonomous milestone, but Waymo has also publicly shared the data to back up its progress. As previously teased last year, Waymo is also now officially testing driverless rides in Los Angeles.
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A year after Waymo announced a custom robotaxi for its ride-hailing service, the Alphabet company today previewed the autonomous electric vehicle.
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Google’s Waymo driverless ride-hailing service is expanding operations to Los Angeles, California.
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The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has officially changed a long-standing rule that is now creating a path for automakers to deliver self-driving vehicles without steering wheels or pedals.
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You know Geely as the Chinese money behind Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus – but they’re a lot bigger than that. Geely has its own brand, is backing an electric Smart revival, and recently invested billions in Mercedes’ parent company, Daimler, to become a top shareholder. Geely means business, in other words, and the CEO of their newest premium EV brand, Zeekr, has eyes on America.
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Waymo One is Alphabet’s Lyft/Uber competitor that’s live in Phoenix and currently undergoing testing in San Francisco. Waymo today announced a future EV for its US ride-hailing service that will be “rider-first” and have no steering wheel.
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Autonomous rideshare startup Waymo has announced an additional $2.5 billion investment round of funding. Waymo plans to use the additional funding, led by parent company Alphabet Inc., to hire more staff and advance its self-driving technology toward more paid rides.
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In a Tweet earlier today, autonomous rideshare company Cruise, announced it has secured a multi-year credit line of $5 billion from GM financial, to help purchase thousands of Origin vehicles. This new credit line will give Cruise $10 billion in total capital to help roll out its autonomous Origin vehicles manufactured by GM.
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Autonomous rideshare rivals Waymo and Cruise have both reportedly applied for permits to charge passengers for self-driving rides in the San Francisco Bay area. Some of the applications are still under review, but it could be a major step toward autonomous rideshare vehicles operating as commonplace soon.
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Tesla and Waymo took to media and social media to spar over who has the best self-driving technology.
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Waymo is throwing shade at Tesla and Elon Musk over comments that the latter has made about the usefulness of the former’s self-driving technology.
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Waymo and Daimler have announced a new partnership to bring the former’s autonomous driving technology to the latter’s semi trucks.
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Waymo and Volvo this week announced an exclusive partnership to build a new self-driving electric vehicle for use in a ride-hailing service. Few details were provided other than the goal of working together to develop a Level 4 vehicle capable of autonomy in a wide range of locations and road conditions.
Waymo has been working with a group of early riders in its test program in the Phoenix metro area for over a year and it is learning how they use their autonomous ride-hailing service.
Building on what they learned, Waymo is now announcing new partnerships to help riders better make use of their autonomous service, including a partnership with Walmart.
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After ordering thousands of Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans in January, Waymo is drastically expanding its self-driving fleet with an 62,000 more vehicles. It comes ahead of the Alphabet division’s first ride service this year, while the company is also in discussions to allow others to sell cars that feature its autonomous technology.
Waymo unveiled its latest vehicle equipped with its self-driving technology: a self-driving and all-electric Jaguar I-Pace.
They are building a fleet of those new vehicles to add to their existing test fleets and their upcoming commercial services, which is expected to launch later this year starting in Phoenix.
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Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving company born out of Google X, is seen by many as the leader in the field of self-driving.
After focusing on autonomous passenger cars to soon launch a self-driving ride-hailing service, the company is now expanding the effort to trucks.
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Outside of the tech community, self-driving technology is still seeing a lot of pushback from people who don’t trust computers driving a car for them.
A new video released by Alphabet’s Waymo does a great job to familiarize people with the technology.
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