On March 14, 2024, a Waymo self-driving Jaguar taxi drove on the streets of Los Angeles, California.
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Waymo currently provides more than 100,000 paid robo-taxi rides a week in the U.S., according to one company LinkedIn Announcements Led by its co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. That’s double the company’s 50,000 paid trips per week report in May.
spokesperson for the organization letterOn Tuesday, the company’s self-driving car company told CNBC that San Francisco currently “offers the most rides” among the cities where Waymo operates its commercial services: San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Los Angeles.
Last month, Alphabet announced it would invest an additional $5 billion in Waymo, the company’s self-driving project launched in 2009.
On Monday, Waymo unveiled details about its new “sixth generation” self-driving system that will allow the company to provide driverless services in a wider range of weather conditions without having to install many expensive cameras in the vehicles and sensors.
Waymo currently has about 700 vehicles and operates Waymo One, the only commercial robotaxi service in the United States.
Waymo previously partnered with Phoenix-based ride-hailing giant Uber to serve existing users of the app. Waymo noted in a statement on Tuesday that it would also expand its service area in Phoenix by 90 square miles in June 2024, making it the largest self-driving ride-hailing “territory” in any state.
This month, Waymo also expanded its San Francisco robo-taxi service to three new areas in California — Daly City, Broadmoor and Colma — and is currently testing its self-driving cars on highways around the San Francisco metro area .
While CNBC could not independently confirm the company’s safety claims, Waymo also said that “across more than 14.8 million driver-only miles, Waymo drivers are 3.5 times better than human drivers at avoiding collisions that result in injuries. “It is 3 times better at avoiding police-reported collisions than human drivers.”
Although Didi and Didi Chuxing offer commercial robotaxi services Pony.ai Although Waymo is already up and running in China, it currently faces limited domestic competition. General MotorsIts Cruise unit suffered setbacks that temporarily took its self-driving cars off the road, while companies such as Uber and Ford also halted efforts to develop robotaxis.
Elon Musk’s electric car maker, TeslaFor years, the company has promised to transform customers’ existing vehicles into self-driving vehicles through software updates. However, the company has yet to produce a car capable of acting as a robotaxi. Tesla plans to unveil its CyberCab, or purpose-built robotaxi, at a highly anticipated event on October 10.
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