This morning at Chelsea Piers in NYC, Waymo CEO John Krafcik announced a new model of car powered by Waymo’s self-driving technology. Dubbed the world’s first premium fully self-driving car, Waymo has partnered with Jaguar Landrover to bring the Waymo-outfitted Jaguar iPace to market.
These self-driving cars can serve a million trips in a single day.
This is the sixth model in Waymo’s lineup, including a small car, an SUV, a firefly prototype, a minivan (the Pacifica we’re all familiar with) and a semi-truck for operations.
“We want to build a self-driving car for every passenger and every trip,” said John Krafcik at the reveal.
He also said that the Jaguar Landrover model also has a bigger battery, allowing the car to drive all day. Moreover, this partnership signals a move across the Atlantic for Waymo, expressing interest in bringing self-driving cars over to Europe.
Waymo has already announced that Waymo would bring self-driving service to the public in 2018.
Developing…
A little background
Earlier this year, Waymo placed an order for even more Chrysler Pacifica minivans from FCA to outfit its self-driving fleet. This is on top of the original 500 vehicles already supplied to Waymo, as the company begins to ramp up to its 2018 public launch.
This comes at a time when self-driving tech is having a bit of a publicity crisis. One of Uber’s self-driving cars was recently involved in a fatal collision with a pedestrian, which may slow public adoption of the technology.
In turn, Uber’s self-driving testing has been suspended in the state of Arizona, where many AV companies test their fleet.
Moreover, these companies seem to be racing to launch public fleets first. GM’s Cruise fleet is supposed to launch in 2019, with Uber working to get their fleet out by mid-2019.
This also comes on the heels of a long and gritty legal battle between Uber and Waymo over self-driving IP, which was settled in February.
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