Coches autónomos

[Cadavre Exquis]

Waymo Starts Robotaxi Testing In Philadelphia and NYC
Posted by BeauHD on Monday July 07, 2025 @07:30PM from the coming-to-a-city-near-you dept.

Waymo has launched new "road trips" to Philadelphia and New York City, "signaling the Alphabet-owned company's interest in expanding into Northeastern cities," reports TechCrunch. While these trips don't guarantee commercial launches, they follow a pattern that previously led to deployments in cities like Los Angeles. Other road trips this year are planned for Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, and San Antonio. From the report:

Typically, the trips involve sending a small fleet of human-driven vehicles equipped with Waymo's autonomous driving system to map out the new city. Then Waymo tests the vehicles autonomously, though still with a human behind the wheel, before taking any data and learnings back to its engineers to improve the AI driver's performance. In some cases, these road trips have led to commercial launches. In 2023, the company made a road trip to Santa Monica, a city in Los Angeles County. The company now operates a commercial service in Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood.

For its Philadelphia trip, Waymo plans to place vehicles in the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and freeways, according to a spokesperson. She noted folks will see Waymo vehicles driving "at all hours throughout various Philadelphia neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, University City, and as far east as the Delaware River."

In NYC, Waymo will drive its cars manually in Manhattan just north of Central Park down to The Battery and parts of Downtown Brooklyn. The company will also map parts of Jersey City and Hoboken in New Jersey. Waymo applied last month for a permit to test its AVs in New York City with a human behind the wheel. The company has not yet received approval.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://x.com/Waymo/status/1945106097741664630

Alphabet's Waymo picks up speed as Tesla robotaxi service expands

Abhirup Roy and Akash Sriram · 2025.07.16

Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole

A Waymo rider-only robotaxi is seen during a test ride in San Francisco, California, U.S., December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Paresh Dave

SAN FRANCISCO, July 15 (Reuters) - Alphabet's, opens new tab Waymo robotaxis have driven more than 100 million miles without a human behind the wheel, doubling the mileage in about six months, a top company official said, as it speeds up deployment in U.S. cities amid rising competition.

Rival Tesla, opens new tab is expanding 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 has been expanding its service cautiously for years. With about 1,500 vehicles, it is 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."

Waymo had logged about 71 million autonomous miles (114.3 million km) 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.

"This type of milestone helps extend Waymo's lead over other self-driving services, because the cumulative experience of those hundred million miles is important," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.

Waymo's driverless taxi mileage surges in 2025

Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been harder than anticipated with high costs, tight regulations and federal investigations forcing many, including General Motors' (GM.N), opens new tab Cruise, to shut down. Among the few still in the race is Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab Zoox, which is testing a vehicle without manual controls such as a steering wheel and pedals, and plans to launch commercial services in Las Vegas this year.

Until Tesla's robotaxi rollout last month, Waymo was the only U.S. firm to operate driverless 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 said in March it aims to launch fully autonomous ride-hailing in Washington, D.C. next year. It has also 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.

Reporting by Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Richard Chang

Saludos.