Waymo to Bring Self-Driving Alternative to Uber

• Published On: 13 November 2017
• 860 Views

The company, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, will launch a driverless taxi service in the US in the coming few months.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik stated that the company will introduce a completely autonomous rival to Uber soon. Waymo is Google parent company Alphabet’s self-driving project and the first set of vehicles launched will ply in Phoenix, Arizona, US. You can book a cab using a smartphone app. Waymo engineers are still fine tuning how the Car will react to adverse situations.

The first fully autonomous vehicle from the company will be a Chrysler Pacifica MPV. For the time being, a Waymo employee will sit in the driver’s seat as a precaution, but once more and more people start using the service, the company will provide a kill switch as a precaution.

The service will be free initially when launched, though a specific timeline has not been revealed as yet. The fee to use the service will be introduced later to offset development costs.