Company type | Subsidiary |
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Industry | Autonomous cars |
Predecessor | Google Self-Driving Car Project |
Founded |
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Founder | |
Headquarters | , USA |
Area served |
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Key people |
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Number of employees | 2,500 (2023) |
Parent |
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Website | waymo |
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[update], 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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