Waymo says it doubled its weekly paid robotaxi journeys to 100,000 since Might
A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives alongside a avenue on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Pictures
Waymo is now offering greater than 100,000 paid robotaxi rides per week within the U.S., in line with a LinkedIn announcement by co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. That is double the 50,000 weekly paid journeys the corporate reported in Might.
A spokesperson for the Alphabet-owned driverless automobile enterprise advised CNBC on Tuesday that San Francisco now “serves essentially the most journeys” among the many cities the place Waymo operates its business service: San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Los Angeles.
Final month, Alphabet announced that it was investing a further $5 billion into Waymo, which began as a self-driving mission on the firm in 2009.
On Monday, Waymo revealed details about its new, “era 6” self-driving system, which ought to allow the corporate to supply driverless providers in a wider array of climate circumstances and with out requiring as many expensive cameras and sensors in its autos.
Waymo, which boasts round 700 autos in its fleet at the moment, operates the one business robotaxi service within the U.S., Waymo One.
Waymo beforehand partnered with the ride-hailing big Uber in Phoenix to deliver its service to the app’s present customers there. In a press release Tuesday, Waymo stated that in June it added 90 sq. miles to its service in Phoenix, making it the biggest autonomous ride-hailing “territory” within the states.
This month, Waymo additionally expanded its San Francisco robotaxi service into three new California areas — Daly Metropolis, Broadmoor and Colma — and is now testing its driverless autos on freeways across the San Francisco metro space.
Whereas CNBC couldn’t independently affirm the corporate’s security claims, Waymo additionally stated that “over 14.8 million rider-only miles pushed, the Waymo Driver was 3.5x higher in avoiding crashes that induced accidents and 3x higher in avoiding police-reported crashes than human drivers.”
Though business robotaxi providers from Didi and Pony.ai are up and operating in China, Waymo presently faces restricted home competitors. GM-owned Cruise experienced setbacks that took its driverless autos off the highway briefly, and firms together with Uber and Ford have shuttered their efforts to develop robotaxis.
Elon Musk’s electrical automobile maker, Tesla, has been promising it might flip clients’ present autos into driverless vehicles with a software program replace for years. Nonetheless, the corporate has not but produced a automotive able to serving as a robotaxi. Tesla plans to unveil its CyberCab, or devoted robotaxi, at a hotly anticipated occasion Oct. 10.
