Waymo expands to San Francisco with public self-driving check

Enlarge / 5th generation Waymos cars based on the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace.

Waymo

Waymo is finally considering expansion. Alphabet’s self-driving car division has been running an impressive self-driving ride-hailing service for nearly a year, but only in a small suburb outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Now the company is expanding its commercial service to San Francisco, starting with a rollout of Trusted Tester. Citizens who wish to register for the confidential testing program will soon be able to mark a Waymo in the city via the app.

According to Google, the “Trusted Tester” program is “a confidential research program within Waymo One, where selected drivers can access our autonomous ride-hailing service and share their experiences directly with our team to help shape the future of autonomous driving “. During the testing program in San Francisco, vehicles need safety drivers who are ready to intervene if something goes wrong. Metro Phoenix Waymo rides no longer require safety drivers.

The expansion in San Francisco will also mark the commercial launch of the Jaguar I-Pace Waymo. Phoenix uses Chrysler Pacifica minivans for its Waymo commercial service, which were chosen because they could automatically close the sliding doors. Waymo originally suspected that if someone got out of a Waymo vehicle and the door didn’t close, the car would be stranded. So the company decided to go for minivans with electric doors. Apparently that is not a problem now.

Enlarge / The I-Pace sensor layout. “Vision” in this graphic means “camera”.

Waymo

Waymo hardware (the sensors, not the car) is now entirely manufactured in-house, and these San Francisco-based I-Pace cars represent the next generation of Waymo releases in hardware and software. The cars are essentially products that Waymo iterates on, and the 5th Waymo Driver.

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The roof of the car houses a 360-degree lidar and a 360-degree camera system as well as a future-oriented “long-range” camera and a radar. Then there is the “perimeter” detection system that places lidar and cameras over the front and rear license plates, cameras and radar on every back corner of the car, and three sensors – lidar, cameras and radar – directly over the front wheel arches to evaluate cross traffic . According to Waymo, the new sensor suite can “identify important details such as pedestrians and stop signs at a distance of more than 500 meters”.

In addition to its new sensor suite, the Jaguar I-Pace is an all-electric car, making it the greenest Waymo vehicle ever (the Pacificas were hybrids). Waymo Says 5th Generation Cars

Enlarge / Our rough estimate of the catchment area based on Google’s text description.

Waymo has been testing these 5th generation cars for several months in San Francisco, so Waymo employees have been able to use the new cars in San Francisco since February. This is the first time the general public can use the service in San Francisco – and the first time I-Paces have won customers. Drivers in the test program can call a taxi using the Waymo One app; it works the same as Uber except that it is limited to the service area.

We’re not entirely sure what Waymo’s San Francisco service area will look like. Waymo’s blog post states that testers can call a cab “wherever they want to go in our initial service area, be it their favorite sunset bakery or a special picnic spot in Golden Gate Park”. We’ve marked both the Sunset District and Golden Gate Park on a map above, and it’s a tiny area of ​​about 11 square miles.

Much more important than the size of the service area is the fact that Waymo is moving from a sleepy, flat suburb to the hustle and bustle of a large, hilly city, a move that should bring valuable experience to the company.