Waymo Demonstrates Autonomous Driving Tech In San Francisco

Waymo has been operating its driverless vehicles in San Francisco since the summer of 2021, but until recently they all had a safety driver behind the wheel. Now the company has announced that one of its specially equipped self-driving Jaguar I-Pace robo taxis has for the first time driven in San Francisco without a human behind the wheel.

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Tekedra Mawakana, the CEO of Waymo, said

We’re particularly excited about this next phase of our journey as we officially bring our rider-only technology to San Francisco—the city many of us at Waymo call home.

We’ve learned so much from our San Francisco Trusted Testers over the last six months, not to mention the innumerable lessons from our riders in the years since launching our fully autonomous service in the East Valley of Phoenix. Both of which have directly impacted how we bring forward our service as we welcome our first employee riders in SF.

The video above shows part of that first driverless drive, with a split screen showing both the normal camera feed and what the vehicle sees. It’s worth noting that it seems to have a great view of all road users around it and it also sees others in great detail - you can even see cyclists’ legs move as they pedal.

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