Waymo

Waymo LLC
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryAutonomous cars
PredecessorGoogle Self-Driving Car Project
Founded
  • January 17, 2009; 15 years ago (January 17, 2009) (as the Google Self-Driving Car Project)
  • December 13, 2016; 7 years ago (2016-12-13) (as Waymo)
  • 2004; 20 years ago (2004) (as Stanford Self-Driving Car Team)
Founder
Headquarters,
USA
Area served
Key people
Number of employees
2,500 (2023) Edit this on Wikidata
Parent
Websitewaymo.com
Waymo Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid undergoing testing in the San Francisco Bay Area

Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, is an American autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.

The company traces its origins to the Stanford Racing Team, which competed in the 2005 and 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenges.[1] Google's development of self-driving technology began in January 2009,[2][3] led by Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), and Anthony Levandowski, founder of 510 Systems and Anthony's Robots.[4][5] After almost two years of road testing with seven vehicles, the New York Times revealed Google's project in October 2010.[6][7][8]

In fall 2015, Google provided "the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads".[9] In December 2016, the project was renamed Waymo and spun out of Google as part of Alphabet.[10] In October 2020, Waymo became the first company to offer service to the public without safety drivers in the vehicle.[11][12][13][14] Waymo currently operates commercial robotaxi services in Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, and San Francisco,[15] with new services planned in Austin, Texas.[16] As of October 2024, it offers 150,000 paid rides per week totalling over 1 million miles weekly.[17]

Waymo is run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov.[18] The company raised US$5.5 billion in multiple outside funding rounds[19] by 2022 and raised $5.6 billion funding in 2024.[20] Waymo has partnerships with multiple vehicle manufacturers, including Stellantis,[21] Mercedes-Benz Group AG,[22] Jaguar Land Rover,[23] and Volvo.[24]

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  11. ^ "Waymo launches its first commercial self-driving car service". Engadget. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  12. ^ White, Joseph (October 8, 2020). "Waymo opens driverless robo-taxi service to the public in Phoenix". Reuters. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  13. ^ "Waymo Relaunches Driverless Ride Sharing". All About Arizona News. October 12, 2020. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
  14. ^ Hawkins, Andrew J. (December 9, 2019). "Waymo's driverless car: ghost-riding in the back seat of a robot taxi". The Verge.
  15. ^ Knoll, Corina (March 20, 2024). "When Nobody Is Behind the Wheel in Car-Obsessed Los Angeles". The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, 2024.
  16. ^ "Autonomous Ride-Hailing in Austin, Texas". Waymo. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
  17. ^ Ohnsman, Alan. "Alphabet's Waymo Logging 150,000 Robotaxi Rides And 1 Million Miles A Week". Forbes. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  18. ^ "Waymo CEO John Krafcik steps aside as co-CEO's take over". CNBC. April 2, 2021. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference cnbc-may22 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Kolodny, Lora (October 25, 2024). "Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo closes $5.6 billion funding round as robotaxi race heats up in the U.S." CNBC. Retrieved October 30, 2024.
  21. ^ Andrew J. Hawkins (November 7, 2017). "Waymo is first to put fully self-driving cars on US roads without a safety driver". The Verge. Retrieved June 13, 2018.
  22. ^ Daimler Trucks partners with Waymo to build self-driving semi trucks, TechCrunch, October 27, 2020
  23. ^ Bergen, Mark; Naughton, Keith (April 2, 2018). "Waymo isn't going to slow down now". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference :12 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).