Self-driving cars are slowly becoming less sci-fi and more real-world as companies like Waymo, the autonomous arm of Google's parent Alphabet, expand into more cities.
On Wednesday, Waymo shared it's heading to Nashville through a partnership with Lyft. Waymo will start driving autonomously there in the "coming months," it said in a blog post, before opening to the public next year. Riders will hail self-driving vehicles through the Waymo app (formerly Waymo One) and will eventually have the option to be paired with a robotaxi in the Lyft app as well. Lyft will be responsible for managing the robotaxi fleet, which includes vehicle maintenance and cleaning, while Waymo will be responsible for the self-driving technology.
This comes after Waymo on Tuesday said it received a pilot permit allowing it to operate at San Francisco International Airport. The process will kick off with testing by Waymo and airport employees before autonomous rides become available to the public. Earlier this month, Waymo shared it received authorization to operate fully autonomously at San José Mineta International Airport.
Waymo's expansions have ramped up in recent months, with New York, Denver and Seattle joining the roster of upcoming robotaxi locations. In an Aug. 29 blog post, Waymo said it's "entering a new chapter and accelerating our commercial expansion." You can find a full list of where Waymo is heading below.
Waymo currently operates fully autonomous rides for the general public in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Austin, Texas, which use the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace. The vehicles can be summoned either via the Waymo app or Uber, depending on the city.
In January, Waymo announced it would begin testing with manually driven vehicles in 10 new cities this year, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego. And in April, it said it reached a preliminary agreement with Toyota to "explore a collaboration" geared toward developing autonomous driving tech, which could someday be factored into personally owned vehicles.
Waymo's expansion extends to its manufacturing facilities. In May, the company said it's opening a new, 239,000-square-foot autonomous vehicle factory in the Phoenix area. The plan is to add 2,000 more fully autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to its existing 1,500-vehicle fleet. Notably, Waymo indicated it received its "final delivery from Jaguar" earlier this year, as it plans for future iterations of its driverless rides. Waymo added that the "facility's flexible design" will allow it to integrate its upcoming sixth-generation self-driving technology into new vehicles, starting with the all-electric Zeekr RT.
In October, Waymo also announced that it's partnering with Hyundai to bring the next generation of its technology into Ioniq 5 SUVs. In the years to come, riders will be able to summon those all-electric, autonomous vehicles using the Waymo app.
The self-driving company says it provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week and drives across more than 700 square miles of the US. I've hailed several rides myself in San Francisco and, as off-putting as it can seem at first (especially to see a steering wheel turn by itself), I quickly adjusted, and it soon felt like an ordinary ride.
That's not to say there hasn't been pushback as Waymo rolls out to more cities. The company's vehicles have been involved in a handful of high-profile collisions, including one with a bicyclist in San Francisco and another with a towed pickup truck in Phoenix. (Waymo recalled and updated its software to address the issue.)
... continue reading