After eight years and over three million miles, Google has officially announced that Waymo, its new autonomous car company, is ready to take on passengers.
The first rides will take place in Phoenix, Arizona where a few hundred riders will be chosen to test ride the fleet of self-driving cars. The majority of Waymo vehicles are Chrysler Pacifica Plug-In Hybrid minivans.
For the past two months, Waymo had already been offering rides to a small group of people within the Phoenix area. However, the company is now expanding its services with an open application to the general public in Phoenix.
Waymo recently released a video which featured one of the first families lucky enough to test out the search giant’s autonomous ride-hailing service.
With Google’s Arizona initiative, it seems that ride-hailing services will begin to provide autonomous vehicles much sooner than expected. Although this has been a huge investment for Google, analysts predict that Waymo will regain its losses by doing away with drivers – which are usually the most expensive part of ride-hailing business models.
“I’d say our business model on this is TBD (to be determined), and the most important thing that’s going on here is learning more about how people would actually use such a service,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik told USA TODAY a few hours before the announcement.
“It’s our first interaction with real people in our cars,” he said. “This is a big, big step for us.”
Even though Arizona law allows self-driving cars to be tested without human safety drivers behind the wheel, Waymo vehicles will all have an employee in the driver seat for the simple purpose of helping the company gather more information about how people use the service.
“The car will be doing all the driving,” Krafcik continued.
Waymo’s expanded test ride program will send out a total of 600 self-driving minivans across the Phoenix area. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will also deliver an additional 500 custom Pacificas within the next month, which Waymo will then add its autonomous hardware and software to.
“The collaboration between FCA and Waymo has been advantageous for both companies as we continue to work together to fully understand the steps needed to bring self-driving vehicles to market,” FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said.
Applicants chosen to test ride Waymo’s self-driving services will not have to pay for rides according to Krafcik, and applications are currently being accepted here.