The light blue van has started picking up passengers in California and Arizona.
Waymo has started offering rides to passengers in its brand new Ojai robotaxi in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Trips will be free for a limited time.
Ojai is a big step for Waymo. It is the company’s first purpose-built robotaxi. Up to this point, Waymo has relied on retrofitted consumer cars. A van-sized vehicle is also large. This works in stark contrast to Tesla’s teenage CyberCab, which looks like it would have trouble holding two people and their groceries.
Ojai was built by Chinese manufacturer Zeeker and then equipped with Waymo’s autonomous driving hardware at the company’s factory in Arizona. It has plenty of legroom, three screens for rear passengers and charging ports. These vehicles are also the first to use Waymo’s 6th generation driver software. according to ElectrekThis has allowed the company to reduce the number of camera sensors from 29 to 13, along with a reduction in lidar units and radar units; Waymo can reportedly get one of these on the road for less than $20,000.
The new software also works in snowy cities, a limitation that has limited Waymo to warmer locations. To that end, Waymo has confirmed it’s already laying the groundwork for a Chicago rollout.
This is Waymo’s latest expansion. The company currently offers autonomous rides in 11 major US cities, accounting for more than 20 million driverless trips. This is a metric that no other company comes close to matching.
Waymo had to suspend operations in two cities earlier this month as vehicles continued to drive on flooded roads. It also forced the recall of 4,000 cars. Company vehicles also have a tendency to pass school buses without stopping.
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