Waymo has started testing its self-driving car service in Los Angeles
Waymo has already been approved to provide self-driving car services within California, and after testing and operating services in San Francisco, it has further extended its services to Los Angeles.
However, although it has expanded its services to Los Angeles, Waymo does not plan to immediately provide its Waymo One self-driving car ride service in this area. Instead, it will operate a few research and test vehicles in Los Angeles to collect road and terrain information to familiarize the self-driving cars with the area’s operating mode.
Compared with Cruise, which already provides paid self-driving car ride services in California, Waymo is still only testing its self-driving car system within California and has not yet provided paid ride services like in Phoenix, Arizona. However, Waymo continues to seek approval from the California Public Utilities Commission to carry out self-driving car ride service operations.
Waymo will first provide ride experiences to the general public using fifth-generation Jaguar I-Pace vehicles in Santa Monica. The service will only be available outside of peak traffic times and will not charge the general public during the testing phase.
Waymo’s CEO, Dmitri Dolgov, stated that they will only fully provide the service to the general public after confirming that the self-driving car system is operating normally in the Los Angeles area. They also emphasized that they will continue to update their self-driving car system to avoid causing local traffic congestion.
