Waymo opens up its robot taxi service to all San Francisco residents

Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, announced on June 25 that it was opening its autonomous taxi service to all users in the city of San Francisco. The Californian firm obtained approval last August from Californian regulators to extend its 24-hour services with the fleet it desired. However, it had limited its clientele to testers and certain hand-picked users, and had created a waiting list of nearly 300,000 registrants, or more than a quarter of the city's population.

300 vehicles distributed throughout the city

Now, simply download the app to order a ride. Waymo says its self-driving cars have already traveled more than 3.8 million driverless miles in San Francisco, and its vehicles total “tens of thousands of weekly journeys”. Around 300 vehicles make up the Californian city's fleet, compared to 250 in January.

In addition to San Francisco, Waymo has been operating its autonomous vehicles in Phoenix (Arizona) since 2020. A city where traffic conditions are simpler than in San Francisco, with little pedestrian traffic and less elevation gain. The generalization of the robot taxi service in the Californian city is proving to be a real challenge for Waymo, taking into account the hills, the numerous pedestrians and the weather conditions. The company has also been testing its vehicles in Los Angeles since last year, with no planned opening date to the general public.

Getting ahead of Cruise

By fully covering the city and for everyone, the Alphabet subsidiary intends to secure a place of choice in the sector of autonomous driving companies. In particular, vis-à-vis Cruise, one of its main competitors and a subsidiary of General Motors. Cruise had obtained approval from California authorities at the same time as Waymo, but suspended all operations last fall, following a serious personal accident involving one of its vehicles. At the beginning of April, the company restarted tests in Dallas (Texas), and is in contact with the California Department of Motor Vehicles to reintroduce its vehicles.

Waymo will, however, have to ensure that its vehicles fully meet safety requirements. In mid-May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the American federal agency responsible for road safety, opened an investigation into Waymo's autonomous taxis. A procedure initiated following 22 “incidents” including 17 collisions, showing that certain systems “appeared to disobey control devices” and presented a “unexpected behavior”.