Waymo, formerly Google Car, announced on December 2018 the launch of its on-demand robot-taxi commercial service called Waymo One. Long piloted by Google X, the American giant's entity dedicated to innovative ideas (mainly around artificial intelligence and robots), Google Car was launched in 2009. With its many sensors, the car was able to drive without a driver while respecting the traffic rules. It could also anticipate obstacles in her path.
Google has decided to entrust the autonomous car project to a new structure. Entitled Waymo, it no longer intends to develop an autonomous car alone. The idea is rather to partner with existing manufacturers to create hybrid vehicles with autonomous technology. Fiat Chrysler was chosen to support Google in this direction.
Waymo One is available in Phoenix, Arizona, through an intuitive application that allows you to control a vehicle 24/7. The application principle is similar to Uber, the customer receives an estimate of the price of the trip before accepting it or not.
Waymo is now open to a very small number of people called Easy Rider and an operator is present in all vehicles to take control of the vehicle in case of danger. But in october, an email was sent to members of Waymo's Early Rider program discussing autonomous vehicles without a security driver present.
The issue of autonomous cars can help to solve many of the safety problems on the road. Out of 10 million accidents per year in the United States, 9.5 million are due to human error
Brin, co-founder of Google, says most cars are used for only an hour or two a day, the rest of the time they stay in the garage or in a public car park. The very notion of car ownership could be challenged, leaving room for a vehicle borrowing system similar to a driverless taxi while being more flexible to use than public transport such as the bus or metro. In addition, software driven cars, therefore without fatigue or inattention, could allow safer driving even with reduced distances between each vehicle. The weight of cars could be reduced if the risk of impact is reduced, which would also reduce vehicle consumption and therefore pollution.
Waymo has a good understanding of these security issues. Their mission? "Make it safe and easy for people and things to move around. We aim to bring fully self-driving technology to the world that can improve mobility by giving people the freedom to get around, and save thousands of lives now lost to traffic crashes."
Their website, the showcase of their project, reflects this commitment to improving driving conditions for everyone and ensuring the safety of their passengers. To expand their arguments, they rely on figures that have an impact:
94% of crashes involve human choice or error in the US.
3 million Americans age 40 and older are blind or have low vision
It is difficult for consumers not to feel that they are being targeted by such data. By focusing its strategy on values of safety and environmental respect, Waymo has fully understood the expectations of its customers or future customers.
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