Driverless taxis in LA are now one step closer to becoming commonplace.
Autonomous driving technology company Waymo recently announced it would soon begin testing its robotaxis in Los Angeles, California, to determine its feasibility in the city.
The company previously secured a Driverless Pilot permit from the state in 2022, but it only tested its robotaxis in a limited service area.
Waymo Los Angeles Robotaxi Test Details
A Waymo autonomous vehicle drives by San Francisco City Hall on April 11, 2022 in San Francisco, California. San Francisco is serving as testing grounds for autonomous vehicles with Waymo, a Google subsidiary and Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, logging millions of test miles throughout San Francisco in 2021.
Waymo CEO Dmitri Dolgov mentioned on his Twitter account that the company is starting its robotaxi test in Los Angeles, California, following a "rigorous cycle" of validation and safety readiness evaluation.
He also mentioned that he is thrilled that the data from the evaluation confirmed how well Waymo's "ML-based 5th-gen Driver" generalizes across cities.
The company also revealed that its upcoming robotaxi test, which would use driverless 5th-generation Jaguar I-Pace cars, would mark the first time its robotaxi fleet will roam the streets of LA and that it can now roll out autonomous drivers in new cities with "little-to-no on-board engineering work" thanks to its San Francisco tests, per Engadget.
However, the expansion of Waymo's service area doesn't mean that its robotaxi fleet and service are ready for launch in the city. The LA test will likely follow the same course as the one Waymo followed in San Fransico.
To start, only employees could hail and ride Waymo's robotaxis around the city, per Tech Crunch. The number of robotaxis roaming around the city is also limited since it will only cater to the company's employees under the Waymo Research Trusted Tester program.
Currently, Waymo is already mapping several of the city's neighborhoods, including Downtown, Miracle Mile, Koreatown, and Westwood, which it has been allegedly doing since 2019.
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As such, it is only a matter of time and success before Waymo's rider-only testing will gradually ramp up. Moreover, Waymo cannot charge people for using its robotaxi service; the company could only charge for robotaxi rides in Phoenix, Arizona, so long as those rides take place during the day.
Additionally, the company's robotaxis will be available outside of the city's traditional rush hour times, a Waymo spokesperson revealed. The company may have put this precaution in case to prevent its robotaxis from clogging up streets like one of its vehicles did in San Francisco in 2021, per the BBC.
Waymo didn't give any specific dates for when its test will begin, but it did assure the public that it is continuously updating its self-driving software to avoid having one of its vehicles from stalling traffic like in 2021.
What Is Waymo?
For those that are unaware, Waymo is previously known as the Google self-driving car project, per the company's official website. Despite the change of name, Alphabet, Google's parent company, still owns Waymo.
According to its About Us page, the company aims to make transportation safe and easy for people and other things, such as goods.
The company started testing autonomous vehicles for robotaxi services in 2009 when it successfully created autonomous Toyota Prius vehicles to do ten uninterrupted 100-mile routes. It then gradually evolved to its first original car, the Firefly, which had custom sensors, computers, steering, and braking, but no steering wheel and pedals.
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