Waymo plans to begin testing autonomous autos in 10 new cities this 12 months, beginning with Las Vegas and San Diego, in response to The Verge. However, this doesn’t imply the corporate will launch business operations in any of those cities — and even check them in autonomous mode. Waymo instructed The Verge it is going to ship lower than 10 AVs to every metropolis, the place they are going to be manually pushed.
The information comes just a few hours earlier than Tesla’s 2024 fourth-quarter earnings name, the place buyers can be listening for updates to the automaker’s robotaxi and self-driving initiatives.
Waymo is already working a business robotaxi service in three cities — Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — with plans to launch in Austin, Atlanta, and Miami this 12 months.
The Alphabet-owned firm has not confirmed if it is going to launch a robotaxi service in any of the cities it assessments on this 12 months. Usually, Waymo sends a restricted human-driven fleet to check throughout a broad vary of metropolis and driving circumstances to get a way of how its system adapts to new environments.
In 2024, Waymo examined its autos in Michigan and upstate New York to attempt its know-how in harsher winter circumstances.