Waymo is taking its robotaxis overseas for the first time
Waymo is heading overseas for the first time, with its robotaxis about to hit the streets of one of the world's busiest cities.
Lynk
Stephen Edelstein/Digital Trends / Stephen Edelstein/Digital TrendsWaymo is taking its robotaxis out of the U.S. for the first time as the company begins expanding testing internationally.
A fleet of its autonomous vehicles will be heading first to the busy streets of Tokyo early next year, Waymo announced on Monday.
It’ll outsource servicing and management of its vehicles to Nihon Kotsu, Tokyo’s largest taxi operator, and also work with GO, Japan’s popular taxi-hailing app. To begin with, Nihon Kotsu drivers will manually operate Waymo vehicles in order to build a map of key parts of Japan’s bustling capital, covering areas such as Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chūō, Shinagawa, and Kōtō. Paid robotaxi rides as part of a pilot program will likely follow, though Waymo has yet to reveal a target date for such a service.
Alphabet-owned Waymo said the experience of driving in Tokyo will help its autonomous-vehicle technology to learn and adapt to left-hand traffic, as well as the nuances of driving behavior born from navigating the streets of one of the most densely populated urban environments on the planet.
“Our upcoming road trip to Tokyo gives us the chance to work alongside local partners, government officials, and community groups to understand the new landscape,” Waymo said in a blog post announcing the expansion. “We’ll learn how Waymo can serve Tokyo’s residents and become a beneficial part of the city’s transportation ecosystem. And every step of the way, we’ll take a rigorous approach to validating our technology’s safety and performance.”
The company added that it’s engaging with Japanese policymakers, regulators, and local safety officials “to ensure a responsible and seamless implementation of Waymo’s technology to Tokyo’s streets.”
Japan is suffering an acute shortage of taxi drivers, a factor that may have had some influence on Waymo’s decision to head there. Still, a firmly established robotaxi service covering the entire city is likely to be years away.
Waymo has been testing its autonomous cars for many years in several U.S. cities including San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and recently announced a plan to begin operations in Miami. It also offers paid trips to customers who use a ridesharing app to book its robotaxis.
The company’s continuing expansion comes as General Motors recently announced it was ending funding for rival autonomous-vehicle firm Cruise, citing high costs, issues scaling the business, and increasing competition in the robotaxi market.
Are self-driving cars the death of car ownership?
Self-driving cars are coming. It remains to be seen how long that will take. Plenty of vehicles can more or less drive themselves on highways, but for now, they still can't completely reliably drive themselves on all streets, in all conditions, taking into account all different variables. One thing is clear, though: the tech industry sees autonomous driving as the future of personal transportation, and they're spending billions to reach that goal.
But what happens when we get there? Tesla made headlines for not only announcing its new Cybercab fully autonomous vehicle, but simultaneously claiming that customers will be able to buy one. That's right, at least if Tesla is to be believed, the Cybercab doesn't necessarily represent Tesla building its own Uber-killing fleet of self-driving cars, but instead giving people the ownership over the self-driving car industry.
Tesla’s Elon Musk unveils the Cybercab robotaxi — and also the Robovan
Tesla boss Elon Musk has just taken the wraps off a prototype of the automaker’s long-awaited robotaxi.
Tesla’s CEO performed the unveiling at a special event at the Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California, on Thursday night after being driven to the stage by the new autonomous vehicle. The "Cybercab," as Musk is calling it, sports a futuristic look and comes with butterfly doors that open upwards. The electric vehicle has ditched the steering wheel and pedals, and uses inductive charging instead of a plug. You can see the driverless Cybercab in action in the video below:
Waymo’s Hyundai robotaxi deal may steal the show from Tesla
Just days ahead of Tesla’s much anticipated robotaxi event on Thursday, Hyundai unveiled a partnership with Waymo that will add Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 to the fleet of the robotaxi operator.In the first phase of the partnership, Waymo will integrate its sixth-generation fully autonomous technology, called the Waymo Driver, into the all-electric Ioniq 5 SUV, which will be added to the Waymo One fleet over time.On-road testing with Waymo-enabled Ioniq 5s is due to start in late 2025 and become available to riders of the Waymo One robotaxi service the following year.Alphabet-owned Waymo currently operates the only functioning robotaxi service in the U.S., with a fleet of about 700 self-driving vehicles already on the road in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The service is also being tested in Austin, Texas.Last year, General Motors’ competing robotaxi service Cruise had to stop operations after one of its vehicles struck a pedestrian in San Francisco. Cruise’s GM vehicles are nonetheless expected to resume operations next year through a partnership with Uber.Driverless vehicles have stumbled on two main obstacles on the road to commercialization: The complexity of the technology and tight safety regulations.For now, Waymo’s existing footprint gives it a marked advantage over its competitors. Its sixth-generation technology is said to handle a wider array of weather conditions with fewer on-board cameras and sensors. In their joint statement, Waymo and Hyundai emphasized the proven safety of both the Waymo technology and the Ioniq 5. Waymo’s technology relies on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar). It's an approach that might be very costly but has met the approval of safety regulators. All this adds pressure on Tesla to deliver the goods with the launch of its robotaxi -- expected to be called the Cybercab.Tesla’s ambition has been to eventually provide full driverless capacity directly to consumers. Tesla owners can already buy software called Full Self-Driving (FSD) that operates like an advanced driver assistance system and requires constant driver supervision.Tesla’s FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.The technology, however, has not yet convinced all current and former traffic safety officials.
