Earlier this week, Alphabet’s Google self-driving car project became “Waymo,” which will serve as an independent entity within the technology giant. Executives suggested that the company is close to unveiling its autonomous driving to the public and believe this is the next step to maturing the technology.
Waymo will serve as an independent entity within the technology giant. Image source: Google.
At the moment, no deals have been announced, but the move signals a desire to monetize the company’s research amid competition from a variety of rivals competing to be the first to launch production-ready self-driving vehicles.
Now in its seventh year, Google’s program has been heading the self-driving technology, but is now challenged by companies such as Uber Technologies and Apple.
Until now, the program has been part of the secret research unit, Google X. Waymo stands for “A new way forward in mobility.” According to Waymo’s chief executive, John Krafcik, the company will reveal when the technology will be production-ready “soon.”
Krafcik said Waymo has no interest in producing self-driving cars, but rather in developing the technology to drive them. Possible applications would be in ride-sharing, transportation, trucking, logistics, and personal-use vehicles. Google’s first partner, Chrysler, teamed up with the tech giant back in May to integrate Google’s self-driving system into 100 of the carmaker’s minivans.
Google's self-driving cars have driven over 2 million miles, and testing now focuses on the trickiest scenarios faced by cars on the streets. Google's goal to perfect an autonomous vehicle that requires no human intervention stands in contrast to some other automakers developing partial autonomy, which requires some driver supervision.
Over the past year, Google has doubled its program, hiring more engineers while doubling its testing centers from two U.S. cities to four.
This past July, the project appointed its first general counsel, and a month later, it hired former Airbnb executive, Shaun Stewart, as the project’s director.
Source: Reuters
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