Waymo to enter London in expansion of robotaxi business outside US cities

Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Alphabet, announced Wednesday it will launch robotaxi operations in ￰0￱ firm plans to begin testing its vehicles on London roads in the coming months, with trained safety personnel behind the wheel during the initial ￰1￱ everything goes according to plan and the company secures necessary approvals from regulators and government officials, paying customers could start using the service sometime next ￰2￱ has been growing fast back home The service now operates commercially in five cities in the US, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and ￰3￱ company has also revealed intentions to bring its robotaxis to Washington, D.

C and ￰4￱ August, Waymo received permits allowing it to test its self-driving cars with safety drivers in New York ￰5￱ represents Waymo’s second city outside the United States, following Tokyo, where the company kicked off testing earlier in ￰6￱ the London rollout, Waymo will use Jaguar iPACE electric cars fitted with its Waymo Driver ￰7￱ company already has engineering staff working in London and ￰8￱ plans to partner with Moove, a company that offers vehicle financing to drivers and handles tasks like charging, cleaning, and repairs for ride-hailing companies including Uber and ￰9￱ has also invested in Moove ￰10￱ timing aligns with recent changes in British ￰11￱ June, the United Kingdom government introduced a faster approval process for self-driving car companies wanting to run commercial trials, hoping to attract investment in autonomous vehicle ￰12￱ points to its safety data as a selling point Based on the company’s own data analysis, its technology gets into injury-causing crashes five times less often than human ￰13￱ difference is even more dramatic for accidents involving pedestrians, where Waymo claims its vehicles have 12 times fewer injury-causing incidents compared to human ￰14￱ company has already accumulated significant data in its ￰15￱ reports its autonomous vehicles have driven 100 million miles on public roads without a human driver, and have given more than 10 million paid trips to ￰16￱ company operates under Alphabet’s “Other Bets” division, which generated $373 million in revenue during the second ￰17￱ is scheduled to release third-quarter financial results on October ￰18￱ won’t be alone in London.

Wayve, a British startup with backing from Microsoft and SoftBank, previously said it would launch its own robotaxi trial in London next year. However, Wayve uses a different technical approach, relying on cameras rather than the radar, lidar and advanced sensors that Waymo ￰19￱ camera-based method resembles Tesla’s strategy for autonomous ￰20￱ smartest crypto minds already read our ￰21￱ in? Join them .