Waymo plans to begin testing autonomous autos in 10 new cities this yr, beginning with Las Vegas and San Diego, in accordance with The Verge. Though this doesn’t imply the corporate will launch business operations in any of those cities — and even check them in autonomous mode. Waymo informed The Verge it’ll ship lower than 10 AVs to every metropolis, the place they are going to be manually pushed.
The information comes just a few hours earlier than Tesla’s 2024 fourth-quarter earnings name, the place traders will probably be listening for updates to the automaker’s robotaxi and self-driving initiatives.
Waymo is already working a business robotaxi service in three cities — Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — with plans to launch in Austin, Atlanta, and Miami this yr.
The Alphabet-owned firm has not confirmed if it’ll launch a robotaxi service in any of the cities it assessments on this yr. Normally, Waymo sends a restricted human-driven fleet to check throughout a broad vary of metropolis and driving situations and get a way of how its system adapts to new environments.
In 2024, Waymo examined its autos in Michigan and upstate New York to check its know-how in harsher winter situations.