Google’s Spinoff Waymo Launches World’s First Self-driving Taxi Service

As a result of a decade-long research and testing, Google’s spinoff Waymo has finally launched the first commercial driverless taxi-service. In a post on Medium, Waymo CEO John Krafcik wrote: “We’ve been focused on building the world’s most experienced driver.”

At launch, the members of Waymo’s autonomous taxi programme will be able to book rides in Phoenix, Arizona. To be precise, the service will be available 24-hours a day in Chandler, Tempe, Mesa, and Gilbert areas. The company has named the newly launched service Waymo One.

The company plans to make the robo-taxi service available to even more users. It’ll obviously be coupled with adding more cars to the fleet and introduction of the service in more places.

While the cars being used for commute are fully driverless, in the starting phase, Waymo has put human drives to supervise the vehicles.

It’s worth noting that the riders who are currently able to use the taxi service are the same ones who were already a part of the early riders program for the testing purpose. Now, they’ll be able to bring along friends or family; they’ll also be able to share their views and experiences publicly.

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