The Arizona Department of Transportation approved Waymo for a commercial self-driving car service, the first fully autonomous license in the country.
Riders in Arizona will be able to be picked up and dropped off by one of the company’s thousands of driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans, which the company grew from 600 earlier this year.
During its initial testing phase (dubbed the “early rider program”), the driverless vehicle service was free to riders in Arizona. However, Waymo’s new designation will allow it to charge for the rides.
The company hasn’t said how much it will charge riders, but the lack of human drivers means costs will likely be competitive with Uber and Lyft’s human-powered networks.
Uber and Lyft Competition
Quartz reports Waymo Readies a Ride-Hailing Service that Could Directly Compete with Uber.
Waymo is preparing to launch a ride-hailing service akin to Uber’s, but with driverless cars. The self-driving carmaker spun out of Google was approved on Jan. 24 to operate as a transportation network company (TNC) in Arizona, the state department of transportation told Quartz. Waymo applied for the permit on Jan. 12. Its application, which was reviewed by Quartz, contained images of the autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans the company is testing in five US states.
The application realizes a long-held fear of Uber’s: that Waymo intends not just to build driverless cars, but to operate its own ride-hailing business.
Arizona granted the TNC permit a week and a half before Waymo commenced its trade secrets trial against Uber in San Francisco, alleging Uber stole Waymo’s knowledge on how to build self-driving cars. The two companies reached a settlement on Feb. 9, five days into the trial, which includes Uber paying Waymo a 0.34% equity stake and agreeing not to incorporate Waymo’s confidential information into its software or hardware. But nothing prevents Waymo from competing in the ride-hailing arena.
Waymo confirmed to Quartz that the TNC permit moves it a step closer to the commercial, on-demand ride service it plans to launch in Phoenix this year. “As we continue to test drive our fleet of vehicles in greater Phoenix, we’re taking all the steps necessary to launch our commercial service this year,” a Waymo spokesman said in an emailed statement. The company said it hasn’t announced rates yet for those rides. Waymo plans to operate commercially in other cities in the future, but declined to provide specifics.
Waymo’s vehicles in the Phoenix area have driven more than 4 million miles on public roads. In November, the company said a portion of its cars in the Phoenix area were operating in fully autonomous mode, what’s known in industry parlance as level four autonomy. “A fully self-driving fleet can offer new and improved forms of sharing,” Waymo said at the time, adding that in coming months it would invite members of the public to ride in the fully autonomous vehicles, beginning with those already in the early rider program.
Naysayers Move On
What about dogs, cats, balls, theft, grandmothers on roller skates, and all the other arguments naysayers said would prevent this technology for at least a decade if not longer?
It appears those issues have been solved according to the the Arizona Department of Transportation.
The arguments will now return to the same nonsense about snow, ice, rain and ludicrous ethical conundrums in which a driver has to decide whether to roll over a dog or hit a pedestrian.
A quick check of my calendar says the year is 2018, not 2028. Whatever issues remain for snow and ice will be solved in the next three years, if not sooner.
Human-driven trucks will vanish on interstate highways within a year or two of approval, and that could be as soon as 2020.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
It’s coming much quicker than most people think. Insurance costs will act as an enormous accelerator to driver-less as soon as stats begin showing the true carnage and cost deltas between ever-improving software and that speeding, lane-hopping doper glued to your bumper…while texting.
http://obatperangsangmanjur.net/
MorrisWR, what timeline does she sees for automation in Paccar/Peterbilt? Are they doing full automation or the partial automation that flips back to the driver when the computer senses it’s out of control like Freightliner is doing?
To be convinced I need to see the car drive in tight heavy traffic at 65mph. youtube videos show traffic like we live in Mayberry.
http://vimaxmedan.xyz
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-hercules-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-pelangsing-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-erogan-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/celana-vokoou-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-testo-ultra-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/develope-sex-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-hermuno-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/titan-gel-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/anabolic-rx24-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-kuat-forex-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-vimax-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-viagra-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-kuat-asli-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-perangsang-wanita-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-perangsang-asli-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-semenax-obat-penyubur-sperma-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/tattonox-obat-penghilang-tatto-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-selaput-dara-buatan-asli-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/alat-bantu-vagina-center-flashlight-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-vagina-getar-suara-silicon-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/boneka-cantik-full-body-silikon-asli-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-penis-getar-goyang-elektrik-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-penis-mutiara-getar-putar-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-penis-ikat-pinggang-silicon-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-penis-tempel-jumbo-silicon-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/distributor-kondom-sambung-jumbo-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/distributor-kondom-duri-silicon-bergerigi-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-kondom-getar-silikon-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/distributor-vakum-pembesar-penis-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-pro-extender-alat-pembesar-penis-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/alamat-viagra-100mg-asli-usa-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-kianpi-pill-penggemuk-badan-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/alamat-jual-grow-up-asli-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/alamat-obat-forex-asli-di-batam.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-hammer-of-thor-di-banjarmasin.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-titan-gel-asli-di-bekasi.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-titan-gel-asli-di-jakarta.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/alamat-hammer-of-thor-di-medan.html
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/blog/obat-kuat-di-palembang
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/blog/alat-bantu-sex
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/blog/pusat-obat-pembesar-penis-di-palembang
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/agen-vimax-asli-di-medan
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/alamat-hammer-of-thor-di-bogor
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/hammer-of-thor-asli-di-cibinong
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-hammer-of-thor
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/obat-kuat
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/jual-anabolic-rx24
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-hammer-of-thor-di-batam
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-hammer-of-thor-di-cikarang
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-hammer-of-thor-malang
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-hammer-of-thor-di-pekanbaru
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-hammer-of-thor-di-surabaya
http://vimaxmedan.xyz/toko-jual-vimax-asli-pekanbaru
What happens at street light outages, mass people crossing intersections walking out of the crosswalks. Blocked lanes with broken vehicles, situation’s where you need to drive on the wrong side of the road. Sharing the road with autos 20-40mph over the speed limit. You could take your road rage out on the car.
My wife works for Paccar and they are working on driverless trucks but there are problems with how large trucks work autonomously so I believe it is further off for long haul than expected. Europe may be able to do platooning but it is not likely to
work in the US with the way trucks are designed for cooling. If you are thinking of electric trucks, we better get some system in place to recharge or swap batteries first. A tractor with a full trailer means a heck of a lot of electricity use. It is an exciting time for design and engineering though. Cars as well as local drivers my are a much easier task and I agree it will roll out in other areas quickly.
I’m looking forward to my new man-cave home theatre workshop in what used to be the garage.
“Human-driven trucks will vanish on interstate highways within a year or two of approval, and that could be as soon as 2020.”
And those convoys of goods-laden trucks will be protected by heavily armed guards to prevent looting so the stuff is safely delivered to the doors of the 0.1%, living in heavily fortified gated communities.
Heaven on earth! 😉
This will be their undoing. They are creating a sense of infallibility. Of course, things can still go wrong. It’s tolerated if the driver is human, but is not expected of these machines. Let’s see where things stand after the (inevitable) first high-profile disaster.
Maybe it’s a generational thing but I’ll never, ever take a computer driven car. Why gamble my life to save an extra 3-4 bucks?!?
Mish, do you know what is the legistlation on liability issues with regard to damages caused by the autonomus vehicles?
“jumping out of canvas bags”?!? Does everybody remember what comments to Mish’s postings on self-driving cars included lists of things the authors thought these engineers would never think of or that the automated drivers could not possibly handle?
Quote from a sidebar in that PDF: “To power our simulator, we’ve developed more
than 20,000 simulation scenarios at Castle.
Each recreates a driving situation we want to
practice—an aggressive driver barreling out of
a driveway, or a pedestrian suddenly emerging
from a parked car—that might take hundreds
of thousands of driving miles to encounter on
public roads. We’ve staged people jumping
out of canvas bags or porta potties on the
side of the road, skateboarders lying on their
boards, and thrown stacks of paper in front of
our sensors.”
https://storage.googleapis.com/sdc-prod/v1/safety-report/waymo-safety-report-2017.pdf
That is one way and I reported on it long ago. There are others
Only when they ban driving your own vehicles; Obamacar.
Autonomous vehicles are a litmus test as to whose opinions matter and whose do not. Why waste one’s time replying to a denier?
The issues about snow & ice have been solved. The answer is a ground penetrating radar array mounted to the bottom of the cars, that records the sub-surface features while the car isn’t in snow and ice, then it can refer back to that data to keep the vehicle in the center of the painted lines even when it can’t see them. Hell, they could run fine without lights at all during a new moon.
Detours and officer directed traffic.
What I find remarkable is that I still waste minutes every day in my car sitting at traffic lights, even when there are no vehicles to wait for. We don’t even have ‘smart traffic lights’, but in a few years time, we are going to have trucks and cars with no drivers.
Glad to see you referencing the levels of autonomy.
I have thought for a while that my two year old son may never learn to drive and may never get his driver’s license. Now I am beginning to wonder if my 14 year-old will.
Plus the truck (large capital investment) must be sidelined while the driver must receive his mandated ‘rest’ time.
I mean 13 years to get 99% removed. Drivers can be forced to take compensation cuts. There are independent truckers. There will also be (mostly irrational) political and legal delays. Current trucks would likely be retrofitted.
I believe it is 2018 – Naysayers said this would take decades. The argument is over – well it should be over. Yet, I confidently predict naysayers will say it will never work even after 50% of the trucks on highways are self-driven.
This is still a small step. Only a portion of the fleet has no driver and Phoenix is probably the easiest major city to get working. It’s always sunny. Not saying it won’t happen, but to conclude this is proof that driverless vehicles are going mainstream is hyperbole at this point.
“I predict it will take 13 years.” LOL Do you have any idea what a driver costs in wages and benefits?
“Human-driven trucks will vanish on interstate highways within a year or two of approval…” I cannot see throwing away gazillions of human-driven trucks within a year or two, unless there is a generic robot that can be mass-produced to replace the current drivers. I predict it will take 13 years.