Alphabet's Waymo picks up speed as Tesla robotaxi service expands
Waymo's push comes as Tesla expands its self-driving taxi service after a small trial with about a dozen of its Model Y SUVs in a limited area of Austin, Texas last month.
While Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said Tesla will scale up the service rapidly and launch in several U.S. cities by the end of 2025, Waymo with about 1,500 vehicles has been expanding its service cautiously for years. It is currently available in San Francisco and some other Bay Area cities, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.
"Reaching 100 million fully autonomous miles represents years of methodical progress now accelerating into rapid, responsible scaling," said Waymo's chief product officer, Saswat Panigrahi.
"As we expand to serve more riders in more cities, we'll encounter new challenges that will continue strengthening our service," Panigrahi added.
Waymo had logged about 71 million autonomous miles as of March, up from 50 million miles at the end of 2024 and 25 million miles through July 2024. It had completed its first million miles in January 2023.
Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been harder than anticipated with high costs, tight regulations and federal investigations forcing many, including General Motors' Cruise, to shut down. Among the few still in the race are Amazon's Zoox, which is testing a vehicle without manual controls such as a steering wheel and pedals, and plans to launch the commercial services in Las Vegas this year.
Until Tesla's robotaxi roll out last month, Waymo was the only U.S. firm to operate uncrewed taxis with paying passengers.
Waymo, Tesla and Zoox and others have faced federal investigations and recalls following collisions.
Despite multiple traffic problems and driving mistakes as Tesla tiptoed into the robotaxi business after years of missed promises, Musk expanded the service area in Austin and said last week it will roll out services in the San Francisco Bay Area within two months.
Waymo in March said it aims to launch fully autonomous ride-hailing in Washington, D.C. next year. It has applied for a permit to operate autonomous vehicles in New York, with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan, and said last month it will start by manually driving in the city until it gets the permit.
Robotaxis from Waymo, which started as Google's small self-driving project in 2009 and spun out seven years later, now cover more than two million miles per week autonomously.
As of May, the company has completed more than 10 million autonomous trips, up from 5 million trips at the end of 2024.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
12 minutes ago
- CNA
Equities and dollar rise with encouragement from economic data and earnings reports
NEW YORK/LONDON :MSCI's global equity index was advancing on Thursday while the dollar rose as investors were encouraged by the latest crop of economic data and earnings reports. Data on jobless claims showed that the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, pointing to steady job growth so far in July, though some laid off workers are experiencing long spells of unemployment because of a moderation in hiring. U.S. retail sales rebounded more than expected in June, but some of the increase likely reflected higher prices for some goods exposed to tariffs. "In economic data two key releases came out today: retail sales and jobless claims. Both were better than anticipated," said Mike Cornacchioli, investment strategy director and senior vice president at Citizens Private Wealth. "Those two illustrate the strength of the consumer and the labor market. So, a lot of the fears that were placed on the state of the U.S. economy are overblown and have failed to come to fruition at this point in time. Maybe they will some time down the line, but this data and the data that's come in lately has just reinforced the strength of the US economy." Cornacchioli also pointed to strong earnings reports as a boost for equities on Thursday. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world's main maker of advanced AI chips, posted record profits ahead of expectations. It warned that future income might be hit by U.S. tariffs, though perhaps not until the fourth quarter. Also, GE Aerospace lifted its profit outlook with jet engine deliveries rising as efforts to fix supply constraints showed results. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe rose 3.86 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 924.97. Europe's STOXX 600 index rose 0.92 per cent, boosted by strong earnings after record orders at Swiss engineering firm ABB and record $13.5 billion profits. And Wall Street followed Europe higher but at a more modest pace. At 11:17 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 72.83 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 44,327.61, the S&P 500 rose 20.73 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 6,284.32 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 142.41 points, or 0.69 per cent, to 20,872.92. Thursday's gains follow a dramatic wobble during the prior session when Trump said he was highly unlikely to fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. However he left the door open to the possibility of ousting him and renewed his criticism of the central bank chief for not cutting U.S. interest rates. In currencies, the dollar rose on Thursday after the economic data. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar strengthened 0.47 per cent to 148.56 as polls showed Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's coalition was in danger of losing its majority in the upper house in upcoming elections. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, rose 0.37 per cent to 98.71. The euro was down 0.4 per cent at $1.1587. U.S. Treasury yields edged lower after briefly spiking following the economic data which showed the world's largest economy on a stable footing and supported the Fed's patient stance on monetary easing. The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes fell 1.2 basis points to 4.443 per cent, from 4.455 per cent late on Wednesday while the 30-year bond yield fell 2.4 basis points to 4.9905 per cent from 5.015 per cent. However, the 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose 2.4 basis points to 3.909 per cent, from 3.885 per cent late on Wednesday. In commodity markets, oil prices rose even as global trade tensions appeared to cool, with analysts pointing to low inventories and renewed Middle East risks as factors supporting the market. U.S. crude rose 1.18 per cent to $67.16 a barrel and Brent rose to $68.99 per barrel, up 0.69 per cent on the day. Gold prices were lower after the upbeat U.S. economic data aided the Fed's cautious stance on rate cuts.
CNA
42 minutes ago
- CNA
Exclusive-Amazon's AWS cloud computing unit cuts jobs
SAN FRANCISCO :Amazon cut jobs in its Amazon Web Services cloud computing unit Thursday, a spokesperson confirmed following a Reuters inquiry. Several groups within AWS were impacted.
CNA
42 minutes ago
- CNA
Meta investors, Zuckerberg reach settlement to end US$8 billion trial over Facebook privacy litigation
WILMINGTON, Delaware: Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday (Jul 17) to settle claims seeking US$8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users' privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on Thursday. The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defence lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day and she congratulated the parties. The plaintiffs' lawyer, Sam Closic, said the agreement just came together quickly. Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is a defendant in the trial and a Meta director, was scheduled to testify on Thursday. Shareholders of Meta sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former company officials including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in hopes of holding them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years. The Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook US$5 billion in 2019 after finding that it failed to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect users' data. The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company. The defendants denied the allegations, which they called "extreme claims." Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. The company was not a defendant. The company declined to comment. A lawyer for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 'This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but it's a missed opportunity for public accountability," said Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers. Zuckerberg was expected to take the stand on Monday and Sandberg on Wednesday. The trial was scheduled to run through the end of next week. The case was also expected to include testimony from former Facebook board members Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies co-founder, and Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix. Meta investors alleged in the lawsuit that former and current board members completely failed to oversee the company's compliance with the 2012 FTC agreement and claim that Zuckerberg and Sandberg knowingly ran Facebook as an illegal data harvesting operation. The case followed revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump's successful US presidential campaign in 2016. Those revelations led to the FTC fine, which was a record at the time. On Wednesday, an expert witness for the plaintiffs testified about what he called "gaps and weaknesses" in Facebook's privacy policies but would not say if the company violated the 2012 agreement that Facebook reached with the FTC. Jeffrey Zients, a former board member, testified on Wednesday that the company did not agree to the FTC fine to spare Zuckerberg legal liability, as shareholders allege. On its website, the company has said it has invested billions of dollars into protecting user privacy since 2019. The trial would have been a rare opportunity for Meta investors to see Zuckerberg answer probing questions under oath. In 2017, Zuckerberg was expected to testify at a trial involving a lawsuit by company investors opposed to his plan to issue a special class of Facebook stock that would have extended his control over that company. That case also settled before he took the stand.
