Waymo Launches Driverless Taxis on Highways in 3 U.S. Cities
▼ Summary
– Waymo is expanding its self-driving taxi service to highways in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, including routes to San Jose International Airport.
– This marks the first time a company will operate paid driverless services on highways without a driver behind the wheel.
– The highway rollout is a significant step toward encouraging mass adoption of driverless vehicles, described as a profound engineering feat by Waymo’s co-CEO.
– Highways present additional safety challenges, with vehicles reaching speeds up to 65 mph and increased risk of deadly collisions.
– Waymo had previously limited its paid ride-hailing service to streets in set areas but began highway testing last year.
Waymo is expanding its autonomous taxi service to include highway routes in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, marking a major milestone for the driverless vehicle industry. This strategic move allows the company to transport passengers to a wider range of destinations, including San Jose International Airport, significantly enhancing the utility of its ride-hailing platform. The deployment represents the first instance of a commercial robotaxi service operating without a safety driver on public freeways.
According to Dmitri Dolgov, Waymo’s co-chief executive, mastering fully autonomous freeway navigation is a considerable engineering accomplishment. He described the challenge as conceptually simple but exceptionally difficult to execute reliably in the real world. While Waymo, a company under Alphabet, began highway testing last year, its commercial services were previously confined to surface streets within designated zones across five U.S. cities.
This expansion onto high-speed roads introduces a new set of challenges, with passenger safety being the paramount concern. The vehicles will now travel at speeds up to 65 miles per hour, a velocity that inherently raises the potential severity of any accidents. The topic of public acceptance was recently addressed by Tekedra Mawakana, Waymo’s other co-CEO. At a prominent tech conference, she was questioned about whether society would tolerate fatal incidents involving autonomous vehicles. Mawakana expressed her belief that the public would ultimately accept such risks as the technology becomes more integrated into daily life.
(Source: Ars Technica)
