August 9, 2023: Austin is the next official market for Waymo’s ride-hail service, an announcement on Wednesday stated.
Austin is the fourth major city to allow Waymo’s ride-hailing pilot program, behind Metro Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The program’s “initial phase of operations” will begin in the fall, per the announcement. Still, Waymo will wait to offer rides to the public until a few months later “with fully autonomous deployment.” The company had manipulated early tests in Austin since at least March of this year.
According to a blog post, Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing service will be available night and day in downtown Austin, Barton Hills, East Austin, Hyde Park, Riverside, and more. The company cited reports of Austin’s fast-growing economy as influential in its decision to expand its services to the city and its dense population, with nearly 2.5 million people in the metro area.
The company has raised at least $5.5 billion in funding since Alphabet set up Waymo as its entity in 2016. Waymo earmarked its latest round, which totaled $2.5 billion from investors, including Alphabet and Andreessen Horowitz, in 2021 for advancing its technology and expanding its team.
In recent years, Waymo and competitors in the self-driving space have waged an uphill battle for adoption amid consumer safety concerns, red tape in cities, and the need for more human safety drivers.
Nearly three years after the departure of Waymo One, Waymo’s fully driverless service, it remains one of only two such services with commercial operations in the U.S. Part of the challenge is due to robotaxi companies’ struggles to land in cities with not only favorable local leadership and regulatory circumstances but also the perfect mix of characteristics, such as road infrastructure, climate, and population.
Waymo announced in late July it would “push back the timeline” on its autonomous semi-truck development and instead focus on independent ride-hailing services. An undisclosed number of layoffs were part of the decision to pause trucking efforts.
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