Self-driving Car Leader Waymo from Google is Clearly Leading The Way

Even so, it's no longer near. Previously seen as a frontrunner in the autonomous driving industry, Google's Waymo has emerged as the apparent leader. Just now, Waymo achieved 100,000 paid autonomous trips per week, according to co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana's announcement.

First unveiled in 2019, Tesla's "robotaxi" concept aimed at creating a self-driving ride-sharing network is now scheduled for release in October. Moreover, General Motors may begin charging for self-driving rides in 2025 after recently laying off over a thousand software developers.

Right now, Waymo only serves San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. However, the company hopes to add Austin "soon," which might lead to a huge increase in the 100,000 paid rides per week that it now offers. The business also frequently adds new areas that surround the cities it serves.

The business just revealed Waymo Driver, the sixth version of its self-driving technology, yesterday. Although the new version uses less sensors than the previous one, it still makes use of 13 cameras, 4 lidar, 6 radar, and external audio receivers. According to the business, Waymo Driver can see overlapping fields of view up to 500 meters away from the car thanks to its sensor suite.

“Our current system allows us to provide safe and reliable service to riders in the cities where we operate, even in extreme heat, fog, rain, and hail,” the company’s VP of engineering, Satish Jeyachandran, recently said.

Tesla, on the other hand, has made an effort to accomplish self-driving with significantly fewer cameras and just visual technologies. Lidar, radar, and cameras are used in GM's Cruise.

There are significant financial implications associated with the race to develop safe autonomous driving, with some estimates placing the worth of a working robotaxi empire at over $5 trillion by 2029. That might lead to drastically higher stock market valuations for Alphabet, the parent firm of Waymo as well as Google.

Additionally, the failure of Tesla's soon-to-be-announced robotaxi might put pressure on the company's price, which has already dropped 11% this year.