Waymo to start driverless taxi service in Dec
NEWYORK: In just a few weeks, humanity may take its first paid ride into the age of driverless cars.
Waymo, the secretive subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., is planning to launch the world’s first commercial driverless car service in early December, according to a person familiar with the plans. It will operate under an entirely new brand and compete directly with Uber and Lyft.
Waymo is keeping the new name a closely guarded secret until the formal announcement, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven’t been made public.
“Waymo has been working on self-driving technology for nearly a decade, with safety at the core of everything we do,” the company said in an emailed statement. A Waymo spokesperson declined to comment on the name of the new service or timing of the launch. It’s a big milestone for self-driving cars, but it won’t exactly be a “flip-the-switch” moment. Waymo isn’t planning a splashy media event, and the service won’t be appearing in an app store anytime soon, according to the person familiar with the program. Instead, things will start small—perhaps dozens or hundreds of riders in the suburbs around Phoenix, covering about 100 square miles.the first wave of customers will likely draw from Waymo’s Early Rider Programme—a test group of 400 volunteer families who have been riding Waymos for more than a year. The customers who move to the new service will be released from their non-disclosure agreements, which means they’ll be free to talk about it, snap selfies, and take friends or even members of the media along for rides. New customers in the Phoenix area will be gradually phased in as Waymo adds more vehicles to its fleet to ensure a balance of supply and demand.
When Waymo starts its commercial programme, there will be backup drivers in the car to help ease customers into the service and to take over if necessary, according to the person familiar with the plans. The fleet of heavily modified Chrysler Pacifica minivans will drive themselves more than 99.9% of the time, based on data from Waymo’s test programme submitted to California regulators. Some volunteers in the Phoenix Early Rider Program won’t switch over to the new commercial programme, the person said. Instead, they’ll continue to be used to test new features and offer feedback to the company. For example, volunteers occasionally receive cars with no backup driver in the car at all.