Waymo has been testing self-driving taxis for a select group of customers in Phoenix for the past couple of months and they are on the cusp of launching their autonomous ride-hailing service sometime later this month according to a report by AppleInsider. This is a step forward when it comes to testing as it will take self-driving cars to the public roads and also ferry passengers around at the same time. Talk about double liability issues.
On the inside, things haven’t been all rosy for the folks in Waymo. The plan was to launch this service last year but due to hiring freezes and unrealistic deadlines, the internal team managed to negotiate with management for at least some leniency as well as being realistic. This led to Waymo releasing multiple types of services to test first before jumping on the big bandwagon.
Compared to the rest, Waymo seems to be ahead of the curve as others are still in their testing phase and trying to rack up driving miles. The case of Waymo vs Uber is still ongoing in courts today with some interesting revelations. GM, Toyota and Volvo still are looking at various ways to get ahead of the rest and Lyft has also partnered up with Waymo so this service may also involve Lyft.
