Autonomous Vehicle Company Waymo Will Start Fully Driverless Rides In San Francisco
Autonomous driving company Waymo is now bringing its completely driverless vehicles to real roadways in San Francisco.
Waymo said in a statement that an engineer for the company was the first person to receive a ride from a fully autonomous vehicle in San Francisco on Wednesday. This marked the start of other employees being the first to access test rides in the city as well. Employees are the only people able to access the rides as of now.
“We’re particularly excited about this next phase of our journey as we officially bring our rider-only technology to San Francisco—the city many of us at Waymo call home,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a statement.
“We’ve learned so much from our San Francisco Trusted Testers over the last six months, not to mention the innumerable lessons from our riders in the years since launching our fully autonomous service in the East Valley of Phoenix. Both of which have directly impacted how we bring forward our service as we welcome our first employee riders in SF,” Mawakana added.
The move to completely driverless rides in San Francisco comes after more than a year of testing in Phoenix through its “Trusted Tester” program. Waymo has tested rides with a human driver behind the wheel while the vehicle maneuvers during other tests.
Waymo hopes to expand the service to the public and other members of its Trusted Tester program in the future.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.