Late last year, Waymo acquired a Driverless Pilot permit from the state of California, putting the alphabet-owned firm one step closer to starting its autonomous taxi service in the state. Waymo has announced intentions to begin testing autonomous vehicles in Los Angeles, increasing its service area. According to Engadget, the test will be the first time that completely driverless vehicles will wander the streets of Los Angeles, adding that owing to successful testing in San Francisco, the business has been able to roll out autonomous drivers in other locations with “little-to-no on-board technical effort.”
Following a rigorous cycle of validation and safety readiness evaluation, @Waymo is starting fully-autonomous (no human driver) testing in LA. Thrilled by the data confirming, once again, how well our ML-based 5th-gen Driver generalizes across cities! pic.twitter.com/hd0XU5zecT
— Dmitri Dolgov (@dmitri_dolgov) February 27, 2023
Nevertheless, this does not imply that the business is ready to begin its Waymo One taxi service in California. The LA test will presumably follow the same path as Waymo’s San Francisco fleet: a limited number of cars will be accessible exclusively to passengers in the Waymo Research Trusted Tester programme. Waymo did not provide a timeline for when the entire driverless taxi service would be accessible to clients in Los Angeles, but it is likely to be contingent on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) awarding the company a Driverless Deployment permit. Until that last legal obstacle is overcome, Waymo’s paid taxi service will be limited to Phoenix, Arizona. So far, GM’s Cruise robotaxi service is the only firm in the state that is authorised to charge for autonomous trips during daytime hours.
Waymo did not provide a particular start date for the test, but did mention that its 5th-generation Jaguar I-Pace vehicles would begin rider-only testing in Santa Monica outside of peak hour. The programme will then be expanded in compliance with Waymo’s safety strategy before being made available to customers. However, if you are concerned that the vehicles could worsen LA traffic, the business guarantees that it is constantly improving its self- driving software to prevent delaying traffic, as one halted Waymo vehicle recently did in San Francisco.
