Per prior GM Authority coverage, Alphabet’s Waymo – which serves as a direct rival to General Motors’ Cruise in the autonomous robotaxi sector – had its expansion plans approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) earlier this month. Now, the self-driving subsidiary has officially begun offering free rides in Los Angeles, California.
According to a report from Reuters, robotaxi services will be available across a 63-square-mile area that spans from Santa Monica to downtown LA. Notably, these rides will be free for the time being, but will eventually transition to paid services in the coming weeks.
“We’ll permanently welcome riders into our service, gradually onboarding the more than 50,000 people on our LA waitlist and continuing to hand out temporary codes at local events throughout the city,” a Waymo spokesperson was quoted as stating.
It’s worth noting that operations will be expanded into Los Angeles itself over time. Moving forward, Waymo robotaxi services will eventually be offered in San Francisco areas as well.
In other Waymo-related news, the rival to GM’s Cruise issued a recall for its self-driving technology after two of its self-driving robotaxis managed to strike the same truck. Interestingly, it was found that due to an orientation mismatch – as the truck was being towed be a tow truck and thus facing backwards – the autonomous driving technology had trouble predicting the future motion of the combination. Due to this mishap, a software update was pushed to all its AVs between December 20th, 2023 and January 12th, 2024 to ensure that this mistake wouldn’t be made again.
Furthermore, one of Waymo’s robotaxi units was set on fire during a celebration of China’s Lunar New Year. For now, the motive behind this attack is currently unknown.
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