In Self-Driving Race, Waymo Sets Its Own Terms
- 7 years ago
In Self-Driving Race, Waymo Sets Its Own Terms
That is the message Waymo, the autonomous vehicle division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, tried to send on Monday, when it invited a group of reporters to visit Castle, a facility in California’s Central Valley
that it has been using as a training course for its self-driving vehicles.
It is aiming for Level 4 autonomy, an official classification for a vehicle
that is capable of driving itself, with no human behind the wheel, in most environments and road conditions.
It believes that nothing short of Level 4 counts as autonomous, and
that bypassing Level 3 (a lower classification, in which some human attention is still required) is necessary to keep people safe on the roads.
The company declined to put a date on when it might release self-driving cars to the general public, and Mr. Krafcik spoke only in generalities about its plans, saying
that it would focus on ride-hailing and autonomous trucking as possible early business models
That is the message Waymo, the autonomous vehicle division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, tried to send on Monday, when it invited a group of reporters to visit Castle, a facility in California’s Central Valley
that it has been using as a training course for its self-driving vehicles.
It is aiming for Level 4 autonomy, an official classification for a vehicle
that is capable of driving itself, with no human behind the wheel, in most environments and road conditions.
It believes that nothing short of Level 4 counts as autonomous, and
that bypassing Level 3 (a lower classification, in which some human attention is still required) is necessary to keep people safe on the roads.
The company declined to put a date on when it might release self-driving cars to the general public, and Mr. Krafcik spoke only in generalities about its plans, saying
that it would focus on ride-hailing and autonomous trucking as possible early business models