Waymo
Waymo’s walks in San Francisco will soon start costing money, according to TechCrunch. Alphabet’s division of robotaxi has received the necessary permission from the California Utilities Commission, which allows it to charge customers for their trips, something that should start happening later in March.
Initially, Waymo began training his ax-robot to drive across the flat, sunny latitudes of Chandler, Arizona. And in October 2020, the company finally started offering a real commercial transport service in the area.
Ironically, there are limitations to the lessons you can learn in such a car-oriented environment. Autonomous vehicle training is about extreme management, and there are many more in San Francisco’s dense, chaotic, pedestrian-filled environment than in the Arizona suburbs.
In the fall of 2021, Waymo successfully applied for a deployment permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Until then, the startup robotaxi had a testing permit issued for the first time in 2014. This allowed it to test its autonomous vehicles on public roads, first with a safety driver on board, and then in 2018 without this person on site. of the driver. But Waymo could not carry passengers.
Waymo’s DMV permit allows the company to operate in parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties, even in light rain and light fog and at speeds up to 65 mph (105 km / h).
But this implementation permit alone was not enough to start commercial operations – it also required CPUC approval. And now Waymo has that, although customers who welcome travel to San Francisco will find that they share the cabin with a human safety operator under the terms of the permit.