Waymo

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.

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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.

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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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It can be hard to get your hands on a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, the only plug-in minivan for sale in the US today, and now availability could get worse.

Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car company that spun out of Google X, announced that it is adding ‘thousands’ of Pacifica plug-in hybrid vans to its self-driving fleet.
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Following eight years of development and an ongoing public awareness campaign, Waymo’s self-driving cars are now transporting passengers without a human behind the wheel. Beginning mid-October, these fully autonomous rides will expand to the public as part of a ride-hailing service in the coming months.

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Alphabet’s Waymo announced today that they are expanding their self-driving vehicle test program to Michigan in order to test in tougher winter conditions.
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Waymo’s lawsuit against Uber this February was surprising given Google and Alphabet’s usual hesitancy towards suing. However, Waymo found Uber’s alleged actions a particularly large affront. Reuters has now discovered what Waymo demanded from Uber in settlement talks to stop the case from heading to trial.

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Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car company, has been test-driving its custom Chrysler Pacifica minivans in Phoenix, Arizona for the last couple of months. This public-facing testing is to help teach Waymo’s cars and minivans how to drive independently on public streets. Now, the company has been working with a local police and fire department to train the self-driving minivans to better recognize and react to emergency vehicles…

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A report out of BuzzFeed News at the beginning of this month said that Alphabet’s Waymo was in the early stages of exploring self-driving trucks, and now (via Jalopnik) we have our first peek at one of those trucks out on public roads. The truck sports an appropriate light blue color, the Waymo insignia, and of course the self-driving hardware suite.

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Alphabet’s self-driving car unit Waymo has snatched a former Tesla engineer to lead its hardware efforts. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Waymo has hired Satish Jeyachandran, Tesla’s former director of hardware engineering…

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According to a new report from BuzzFeed News, Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving car company is exploring self-driving trucking. The report explains that the efforts are currently in their early stages, though the company has confirmed that it is testing self-driving trucks…

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According to a report this afternoon from Business Insider, Anthony Levandowski, the subject of a dramatic legal battle between Alphabet’s Waymo and Uber over alleged stolen self-driving car technology, has stepped aside from his role as lead of Uber’s Advanced Technologies group. Levandowski will reportedly continue overseeing operations and safety, however…

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We reported just last week that by adding 300 Chevy Bolt EV to its self-driving test fleet, GM was on its way to having the biggest captive self-driving test fleet in the world, but Waymo just crushed that dream today.

Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving effort and now an official Alphabet company, announced that it is deploying 500 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans in Phoenix. Interestingly, it’s not only about gathering data from driving since they will also give actual rides to the public through a new program.
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Alphabet-owned Waymo is now asking a judge to stop Uber from using the self-driving car tech it claims the ride hailing company stole, in what is the latest development in a legal feud between the two companies. This news follows Waymo’s suit against Uber that was filed late last month over theft of key self-driving technology…

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Alphabet’s Waymo subsidiary has filed a lawsuit against Uber over the theft and replication of a key self-driving component. Former employees working on Google’s self-driving project allegedly stole information before leaving for a start-up that was purchased by Uber.

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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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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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In October, we got our first look through spy shots at the Chrysler Pacifica minivans that Google has been outfitting with its self-driving technology. Today, Chrysler and Waymo, the new Alphabet company created out of Google’s self-driving effort, have officially unveiled the final design of a Chrysler Pacifica with self-driving hardware.
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