Waymo robotaxis will now take passengers on freeways in three major U.S. cities, marking a major milestone for the driverless, ride-hailing company.
Alphabet -owned Waymo on Wednesday said it will begin offering those types of trips in the San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles markets "when a freeway route is meaningfully faster." The Google sister company will gradually extend freeway trips to more riders and locations over time.
Although Waymo's driverless cars have previously taken passengers on smaller highways and side streets, Wednesday's expansion marks the first time the company will take payment from public riders to go on freeways with higher speed limits.
"Freeway driving is one of those things that's very easy to learn, but very hard to master when we're talking about full autonomy without a human driver as a backup, and at scale," Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said at a press event ahead of the announcement. "It took time to do it properly."
Waymo vehicles will generally travel up to a freeway's maximum posted speed limit, which is 65 mph in many cases, the company said. However, a spokesperson confirmed, the robotaxis may sometimes go a few miles over the limit for safety purposes in extraordinary circumstances.
Freeway operations required expanded operational protocols, including coordination with safety officials at the California Highway Patrol and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Waymo said. The company also installed additional infrastructure needed to charge its fleet of electric robotaxis given the freeway expansion.
Over the last year, Waymo has offered select Alphabet employees robotaxi freeway rides around San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix in preparation for Wednesday's launch, said Waymo Product Manager Jacopo Sannazzaro.
The company has been testing on freeways for more than a decade in total, he added. Besides testing on public roads and closed courses, Waymo also conducts testing in simulation to determine how its vehicles will respond to both typical and hard-to-replicate events, like merging onto freeways, lane-splitting motorcyclists or another car flipping over.
CNBC took a freeway test ride in a Waymo in the San Francisco Bay Area, from YouTube's offices in San Bruno to San Mateo and back. The ride went on and off ramps along the California 101 seamlessly, with no incidents.