Waymo launches 24/7 robotaxi service in Silicon Valley.
Waymo completes its cycle.
Waymo has initiated the process to make its robotaxi service commercially available to everyone in Silicon Valley. The company has announced that its transportation app, Waymo One, will be available 24/7 to certain users in a service area of 27 square miles in California, covering locations such as Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and parts of Sunnyvale. Previously, Waymo's autonomous vehicles were only accessible to company employees for rides in Silicon Valley, where Google and Waymo’s headquarters are located. This situation contrasts with Waymo's robotaxi service, which is already publicly available and operates 24/7 in San Francisco, just a few miles to the north.
In an initial phase, Waymo's robotaxis will only be accessible by invitation to a select group of Waymo One customers whose ZIP codes are within the service area. The company plans to gradually increase the number of passengers who can access the service over time, encouraging users to keep an eye on the Waymo One app for future access updates.
This news comes following the launch of Waymo's first collaboration with Uber in Austin, where Uber users can be paired with a Waymo robotaxi within a defined service area. This partnership is expected to expand to Atlanta later this year, while Waymo continues to operate its own transportation app in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.
It’s important to remember that Silicon Valley is where it all began. Waymo was originally part of X, Google's high-risk research and development lab, located just a few miles from the main Googleplex campus. Before becoming Waymo, it was Google’s self-driving car project. In 2009, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page challenged the project engineers to achieve autonomous driving without human intervention or disengagements along ten 100-mile routes crossing Silicon Valley. By December 2009, the team had completed its first route, and nine months later, in mid-2010, they finished the last one.
Eventually, Google’s self-driving car project "graduated" to become a standalone company called Waymo, moving to its own headquarters in Mountain View. With the launch of this fully autonomous commercial robotaxi service in the Valley, Waymo is coming full circle. "Opening our fully autonomous transportation service in Silicon Valley represents a special milestone in our journey through the Bay," said Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo's Head of Product, in a statement. "This is where Waymo began and where we have our headquarters. Now, we are bringing uninterrupted rides, safer streets, and sustainable transportation to our local community."
