Waymo, Google’s self-driving robotaxi, is expanding its taxi service in Los Angeles County.
The company announced today that its self-driving robotaxis are now available to anyone using its ride-sharing app, Waymo One, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Previously, the service was limited in scope and scale, available only to a subset of applicants.
This makes Los Angeles the third city in the U.S. to make the service available to everyone, joining San Francisco and Phoenix.
The service now covers about 80 square miles, including Koreatown, Santa Monica, Hollywood, and South LA near the USC campus.
With no driver behind the wheel, Waymo One is a fully autonomous vehicle, powered by Jaguar’s electric I-PACE compact SUV.
Waymo said it is logging more than 150,000 paid rides per week in the three cities through the Waymo One app. That’s a 50% increase from 100,000 in August.
“Our service has grown rapidly as passengers embrace the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” said Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo.
Waymo was approved by the state government for pilot operations in January and transitioned to a paid service in April.
Service in LA received an enthusiastic response when it first launched this year, with nearly 300,000 people signing up for a waiting list. For months, a limited number of waitlisted passengers could use the service’s fleet of about 50 robotaxis.
Highway autonomy is being piloted in Phoenix and San Francisco, which are not included in Waymo’s operation in LA. This is after a crash on the 10 Freeway during the pilot in May.
Since March, there have been 12 Waymo crashes, all of which were minor and not on freeways, according to DMV records.
Waymo, a startup owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, closed an additional $5.6 billion funding round last October and has rapidly expanded its robotaxi service.
In September, it announced that it would launch a service in Austin, Texas in 2025 in partnership with Uber.
Waymo’s next generation of robotaxi will be SUVs from Zeekr, which are equipped with customized sensors and AI drivers. It also recently announced a partnership with Hyundai to add the Ioniq 5 to its robotaxi fleet.
BY EUNYOUNG LEE, HOONSIK WOO [lee.eunyoung6@koreadaily.com]
