Meet Waymo, Google’s self-driving car venture
Change indicates product launch close at hand
Alphabet Inc’s Google self-driving car project recast itself as Waymo on Tuesday, an independent entity within the technology giant, as executives suggested the company is close to bringing its autonomous driving to the public.
Although no deals were announced, the move signals a desire to finally monetize the company’s valuable research amid fierce competition from a score of rivals all vying to be the first to launch production-ready self-driving cars.
Google’s high-profile program, now in its seventh year, has been at the forefront of self-driving technology, but is now challenged by companies from Uber Technologies Inc to Apple Inc and traditional car companies in the fast-growing industry.
“It’s an indication of the maturity of our technology,” John Krafcik, Waymo’s chief executive, told reporters at a press conference in San Francisco. “We can imagine our selfdriving tech being used in all sorts of areas.”
The move shows “confidence that we are close to bringing this [technology] to a lot of people,” Krafcik said. “We’ve sort of reached an inflection point.”
That came in October 2015, when one of the company’s self-driving cars gave the first fully autonomous ride in Austin, Texas, to a blind man with no one else in the car.
Normally during testing, an engineer sits in the passenger seat to monitor the technology.
Until now, the program has been part of secretive research unit Google X. Waymo stands for “a new way forward in mobility,” according to Krafcik.
Waymo would reveal when the technology will be production-ready “soon,” he said.
Krafcik reiterated that Waymo has no interest in producing self-driving cars, but rather in developing the technology to drive them. Possible applications would be in ride-sharing, transportation, trucking, logistics, and personal use vehicles, he said.
Fiat Chrysler, Google’s first partner, teamed up with the tech company in May to work together to integrate Google’s self-driving system into 100 of the carmaker’s minivans.
Google’s goal to perfect an autonomous vehicle that requires zero human intervention stands in contrast to that of some other automakers developing partial autonomy, which requires some driver supervision. Google’s self-driving cars have driven over 2 million miles and testing now focuses on the trickiest scenarios faced by cars on surface streets.
Google has expanded its program over the past year, hiring more engineers while doubling its testing centers from two US cities to four.
Although there have been some significant departures over the past year – Chief Technical Officer Chris Urmson left in August after leading the project from its inception – some new hires have pointed to the program’s readiness to move past its experimental stage.
In July, the project appointed its first general counsel and a month later it hired former Airbnb execu- tive Shaun Stewart as director of the project, with a mandate to commercialize the company’s self-driving technology.
Google said in February it bears “some responsibility” after one of its self-driving cars struck a municipal bus in a minor crash earlier in February.
The crash may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle and the fault of the self-driving car.
The Mountain View, Californiabased Internet search leader said it made changes to its software after the crash to avoid future incidents.
In a February 23 report filed with California regulators, Google said the crash took place in Mountain View on February 14 when a self-driving Lexus RX450h sought to get around some sandbags in a wide lane.
Google said in the filing the autonomous vehicle was traveling at less than 2 miles per hour, while the bus was moving at about 15 miles per hour. The vehicle and the test driver “believed the bus would slow or allow the Google [autonomous vehicle] to continue,” it said.
But it struck the side of the bus as the Google car re-entered the center of the lane in autonomous model three seconds later.
No one was injured in the car or on the bus.