Waymo's Self-Driving Milepost: Humans Take a Backseat
November 07 2017 - 11:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Tim Higgins and Jack Nicas
Waymo LLC is taking a historic step forward in the development
of fully driverless cars by unleashing the first fleet of robot
vehicles on public roads without humans behind the wheel.
The self-driving car division of Google parent Alphabet Inc. on
Tuesday said it quietly began testing the robot vans on Oct. 19 in
the Phoenix metro area, and laid out a vision for how it will
deploy the technology to the public through a taxi service.
The outfitted Chrysler Pacific minivans still have employees in
the car, but they are no longer at the wheel, instead in the back
seat where they can only push a button to pull over the vehicle.
Waymo said it plans to let passengers sit in the back in coming
months, possibly without an employee in the car.
The deployment marks a milepost for the company, whose effort
that began eight years ago ignited a race among auto makers,
including General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., and tech
companies, such as Apple Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., to become
the first to put a commercial fleet of robot vehicles on public
roadways.
All of these companies have been conducting tests on public
roads but with people behind the wheel ready to take control in
case the cars' computer gets stuck or goes haywire.
Waymo Chief Executive John Krafcik, an automotive industry
veteran, was set to reveal the milestone Tuesday during a speech at
a tech conference in Lisbon, announcing that "in the next few
months" members of the public will get rides in the fully
self-driving vehicles first through the company's Early Rider
program. Users will summon the vehicle through a smartphone app
similar to how vehicles are requested through Uber.
"People will get to use our fleet of on-demand vehicles, to do
anything from commute to work, get home from a night out, or run
errands," he said in the prepared remarks released in advance by
Waymo.
The rise of ride-hailing services and advancements in autonomous
technology have threatened the century-old car-making industry. The
Boston Consulting Group has estimated that one-quarter of miles
driven in the U.S. by 2030 could be through shared, self-driving
vehicles.
The technology, however, still faces a series of obstacles to
widespread adoption. Regulations vary widely by state and are murky
at the federal level. It isn't clear the public is willing to
surrender control to a computer, and unexpected safety issues could
arise in tricky environments, such as snow.
Mr. Krafcik's speech, released in advance by Waymo, described
the company's vision for a future in which cars are more often
shared than owned and are designed differently than vehicles driven
by people.
"A small fleet of fully self-driving cars could serve an entire
community," Mr. Krafcik said. These vehicles could be designed for
specific tasks. "One for napping; a personal dining room; a mobile
office; or a vehicle just for when moving into your new place," he
said. "You can even have that eight-seater SUV for your weekend
trips. You could take these vehicles for one ride, for a day, for a
week, or even longer."
The new rides are a major test for Waymo's technology, which has
proved to be largely error-free in eight years. The company's
vehicles have traveled more than 3.5 million miles on public roads,
and only one has been reported to cause a crash--a vehicle in
California last year hit the side of a bus at two miles an hour
last year. Now Waymo will be able to see how ordinary consumers
interact with robot taxis.
The cars no longer need only to get from A to B. They must also
handle the menial tasks of operating a taxi. For instance, Waymo
has touted its vans' automatic sliding doors, meaning the taxi
won't be stuck if a passenger forgets to shut a door.
During a demonstration last week, Waymo gave rides to reporters
on a closed course that included citylike scenarios. Riders were
greeted inside by screens in the back seat with instructions to
push a blue start button on the ceiling.
Waymo is also testing where to pick up and drop off passengers.
Google was awarded a patent in July for a system that enables
self-driving vehicles to find pickup and drop-off spots. Images in
the patent, which hasn't been previously reported, depict a
smartphone app that enables a rider to choose a pickup point, and
then show the car analyzing the area for a safe spot to stop. One
image shows the smartphone app telling the rider that the car
"could not find a safe place to stop. Circling to try again."
In April, Waymo announced it was expanding its fleet of 100
Chrysler minivans by an additional 500 vehicles and a test program
-- with operators behind the wheel -- for families of non-Google
employees to learn how people might use autonomous technology in
daily life.
The company declined to say how many fully autonomous vehicles
-- beyond saying more than one -- would be without a human driver
behind the wheel.
Initially, the driverless vans will be confined to a small area
of metro Phoenix, with the goal of opening it up to the roughly
100-square-mile area already being tested with humans at the wheel
and eventually to the entire metro area, which is larger than
London.
Write to Tim Higgins at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com and Jack Nicas at
jack.nicas@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 07, 2017 11:14 ET (16:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024