Waymo will begin offering a robotaxi service to the public in Los Angeles this week and in Austin by the end of the year, company co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said Wednesday at SXSW.
Alphabet is testing and validating its driverless vehicles in about 43 square miles around downtown, the Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin and Hyde Park neighborhoods. The announcement comes about a week after Waymo began letting its autonomous vehicles drive through Austin without a safety operator behind the wheel, a critical step before the company opens the program to the public.
The opening of a robotaxi service means the public will be able to take a ride in a driverless car through the Waymo One app. Importantly, Waymo will be able to charge for these rides. Austin will become the fourth city where Waymo has a commercial driverless service. Waymo also operates a robotaxi service in Phoenix, San Francisco and soon Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles, Waymo will begin offering rides in a 63-square-mile area from Santa Monica to downtown. Initially, these routes will be free and will transition to a paid service over time, the company said in an accompanying suspension. The company said it is gradually onboarding the more than 50,000 people on its waiting list in Los Angeles and continues to distribute temporary codes at local events around the city.
Unlike Texas, regulators in California require companies hoping to develop commercial robotaxi services to obtain a number of permits. The California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission regulate the testing, development and chargeability of the rides. In August, Waymo began operating a commercial 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week service throughout the city of San Francisco after receiving approval from the CPUC.
Waymo had the right to offer people free driverless rides in parts of Los Angeles until March 1, when the CPUC approved its application to operate a commercial driverless service in the city as well as on the San Francisco Peninsula and San Francisco freeways . The approval removed the last hurdle to charging for rides in these sprawling areas. Significantly, it breaks new ground for Waymo in one of the nation’s largest cities and unlocks a route to San Francisco International Airport, which is south of the city.
