Waymo, formerly the Google self-driving car project, has been making headlines lately for its robotaxi service operating in two states in retrofitted commercial vehicles. Specifically, the “4th generation” Waymo vehicles, built on Chrysler Pacifica Hybrids, and the “5th generation” Waymo vehicles, built on Jaguar I-Pace.
In its latest development, the company is designing a driverless vehicle from the ground up without any controls or dials for humans – that means no steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors. The truly driverless car was originally announced in December. In a recent LA press event on 17 Nov, Waymo revealed that real-life prototypes are being built now, alongside a camouflaged, sensorless, human-driven test mule that recently hit the road test.
The car is being built under the Zeekr brand of Geely Group and designed as a “transportation-as-a-service (TaaS)-optimized” all-electric vehicle. The car has four automated sliding doors that open to front seats for two and back seats for three. The front dashboard consists primarily of a central touchscreen, with two seat-back touch screens mounted in the back seats, which can be used for playing music, picking a destination, or seeing what the car is thinking about at any given time.
According to Geely, the car is designed specifically for autonomous vehicles and built on the “SEA-M architecture”. “The SEA-M subverts the idea of developing vehicles around the driver, which doesn’t exist in autonomous vehicles. It gives designers the opportunity to create an intelligent mobile ‘living room’ due to the architecture’s fundamental features such as expansive interior, open seat choice and placement choice, no B-pillar, and robust electrical/electronic (E/E) backbone supporting autonomous drive and connected devices.”, added Geely.
The interior of Geely’s autonomous “M-Vision” cars appears to resemble a train, with its customizable layout options featuring a backward-facing front seat and a table center of the vehicle, akin to a “living room” layout. Geely says the M-Vision will hit the streets in 2024. Waymo isn’t that specific.
Earlier in August 2022, Waymo offered its driverless robotaxi service to vetted Phoenix residents.
People who have been accepted into Waymo’s “trusted tester” program can hail a driverless Jaguar I-Pace EV in downtown Phoenix without a human safety operator behind the wheel. Waymo refers to these trips as “rider only” to show there is no human safety operator in the vehicle. A trust tester must sign a non-disclosure agreement and cannot share their experiences with the media or on social media.
Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said in May, on stage at TC Sessions: Mobility, that the company had started allowing employees to hail a driverless ride — sans human operator, in the downtown Phoenix area. Opening it up to trusted testers is the next step before a wider public release.
In honor of the occasion, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego posted a message on Twitter and Instagram (accompanied by a video). “I had the opportunity to take my first rider only trip with the #WaymoDriver,@Waymo’s fully autonomous driving technology,” Gallego said on Aug. 29. “Phoenicians, I can’t wait for you to experience it for yourselves!”
Waymo has developed a playbook for testing, launching and expanding its autonomous ride-hailing service in the metropolitan Phoenix area. In the suburbs east of metro Phoenix, the company initially tested autonomous Pacifica Chrysler Hybrid minivans with human safety operators behind the wheel.
Waymo launched its early rider program in 2017, which has since been rebranded as the “trusted tester” program, to vetted members of the public. (People can download the Waymo One app and create an account to express interest in joining the program.) Waymo then made the service available to the public, which still used a human safety operator.
In those Phoenix suburbs, Waymo launched a driverless robotaxi service after removing the human safety operator from the driver’s seat. Today, in the East Valley, driverless services can be found in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, and Tempe.
The same playbook is being used by Waymo as it expands into downtown Phoenix and begins to offer airport rides. At the moment, only Waymo employees can hail a ride to the airport. There is a human safety operator behind the wheel of those autonomous Jaguar I-Pace EVs.
The company is also ramping up operations in San Francisco. Employees can hail a driverless ride using the Waymo One app, while trusted testers can only access autonomous vehicles with a human safety operator.
There are more than 700 vehicles in Waymo’s fleet, including Jaguar I-Pace EVs, Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans, and Class 8 trucks. Most of them are located in Arizona, California, and Texas and are used for testing and commercial purposes.
