Waymo Expands Driverless Robotaxi Service To Most Of Metro Phoenix

Waymo was the first company to launch a commercialized, fully driver-out robotaxi service in Chandler, Arizona back in 2020. Since then Waymo has expanded the service area to include downtown Phoenix and has been joined by Cruise in San Francisco and several companies in China including Baidu and AutoX. While Waymo is still waiting for a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to offer paid rides in its home state, it has expanded it’s Arizona service area to most of the metropolitan Phoenix area, covering over 180 square miles.

The newly expanded Phoenix service area is now the largest contiguous paid robotaxi service area in the world. It covers the original service area of Chandler, downtown Phoenix and adds Tempe, Mesa and Scottsdale for the first time. Waymo has also added a second pickup/dropoff location at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. Like the original dropoff location, the new spot is one of the SkyTrain stations at the perimeter of the airport property which provides quick access directly to the terminals.

In addition to the Phoenix area service, Waymo is now carrying non-paying passengers throughout most of San Francisco as part of the Waymo One Early Rider program. Early Riders are members of the public that can sign up for the service rather than employees.

Unlike the Cruise paid robotaxi services in San Francisco, Chandler and Austin, Texas, that only carry paying passengers during nighttime hours from about 10 pm to 5:30 am, all of the passenger carrying Waymo operations operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week regardless of whether they charge for the ride. Currently Cruise only has a CPUC permit that allows paid rides during those nighttime hours and in about one-third of the northwest portion of San Francisco. Like Waymo, Cruise has a permit to offer unpaid rides throughout most of the rest of the city all day. Cruise recently launched its Power User service for unpaid rides similar to the Waymo Early Rider program.

According to Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo Chief Product Officer, having recently topped 2 million driverless miles, just a few months after hitting the 1 million mark, the company is now going to deemphasize the mileage in favor of tracking the number of trips. Waymo is now averaging more than 10,000 driverless trips per week and expects that to grow significantly in the coming months.

The number of miles is less relevant in tracking the growth of the service than the trips, since vehicles often complete a significant portion of miles with no one on board as they move around between dropping off a passenger and picking up another. Waymo saw a significant increase in the number of trips taken during the week of the Super Bowl in Phoenix in February and has maintained that amount ever since.

Waymo isn’t saying exactly how many vehicles it has deployed, but a spokesperson acknowledged it’s “a couple hundred cars in each of our Waymo One service areas” with additional vehicles in testing and development operations in multiple locations. The company does try to match vehicle supply with demand in order to avoid racking up empty vehicle miles and contributing to congestion. In San Francisco and Phoenix, wait times for a ride are typically less than 10 minutes.

As part of the expanded service area, Waymo is also increasing the number of riders allowed per trip to four, one in the front passenger seat and three in the back. This is being done to accommodate groups coming home from social events without having to dispatch another vehicle. No one will be allowed to sit in the driver’s seat.

Waymo has also been making software updates to improve the reliability of its driver system including its ability to recognize and respond to gestures from people such as police officers. There have been a number of complaints recently in San Francisco about Waymo and Cruise vehicles causing traffic blockages, especially when emergency vehicles are trying to get through. Waymo vehicles have for several years been equipped with an external microphone array that is trained to recognize all sorts of emergency sirens and also detect what direction they are coming from. However, until recently, they have had challenges with backing away or turning from road closures. Panigrahi, says that Waymo has enhanced the ability of its system to execute multi-point turns in order to make detours.

Recently, Waymo began retiring its fleet of Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid minivans and is currently shifting to an all-electric fleet starting with the Jaguar i-Pace. Eventually, Waymo will also add a smaller purpose-built electric robotaxi with a van-like form factor but no human controls. This vehicle is being developed and is currently going through testing with Zeekr, an EV brand from China’s Geely Group that also owns Volvo and Polestar among many other brands. Unlike the Cruise Origin and Zoox Robotaxi which have carriage style seating, the Zeekr vehicle has all six seats facing forward.

There’s no word yet from Waymo about how they plan to certify the new vehicle or when it will enter service. Zoox announced that it had self-certified its robotaxi to all relevant federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS). Since it lacks some normally required equipment like a steering wheel, pedals and mirrors that are typically mandatory but aren’t relevant to this type of vehicle, Zoox has opted to ignore those requirements. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) which regulates safety compliance of vehicles is currently investigating Zoox’s self-certification claim. Meanwhile, in GM’s Q1 2023 financial report, the automaker acknowledged that Cruise was awaiting a waiver from NHTSA before it deploys the Origin on public roads.

Waymo expects to start receiving its first Zeekr robotaxis for testing by late 2023 or early 2024. Perhaps by that time, NHTSA will have finalized a series of FMVSS updates meant to remove requirements for hardware that is not pertinent to automated vehicles and the certification question will be moot.

In addition to greater Phoenix and San Francisco, Waymo is also doing extensive testing in the Los Angeles area which it plans to make its third commercial market and recently returned to testing in Austin, Texas.