Google has finally announced that its self-driving car project will run as a separate entity named Waymo. Google will continue its new business with a parent company Alphabet, a subsidiary of Google's company. Alphabet will produce Waymo's new technology products, services and various other applications of the new self-driving car project.

Recently, Google had recently put its autonomous car plans aside for its efforts to create a vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals in favour of making partnerships with existing vehicle manufacturers, mentioned in The Information from a number of anonymous sources.

First ride with Steve Mahan 1

Google had made its first deal with a vehicle producer in May this year by working with Fiat-Chrysler and it was said that two companies are building 100 autonomous Pacifica minivans. After a further move, built a standalone business, Google now tests its self-driving technology with Waymo -developed over eight years in Google’s labs.

''Our goal is to commercialize this technology and build products that can help millions of people. As Waymo, one of our next steps will be to let people use fully self-driving cars to do everyday things like run errands or commute to work,'' said Waymo.

''Over the long term we believe self-driving cars will be useful in ways the world has yet to imagine. Waymo will explore many different opportunities for self-driving technology.''

First ride with Steve Mahan 2

Google begun its first self-driving car project in 2009 by drive fully autonomously over ten uninterrupted 100-mile routes in our Toyota Prius vehicles. After that, the company designed a new prototype in 2014 with custom sensors, computers, steering and braking, but no steering wheels or pedals. 

Mountain view. As part of the Paint the Town art experiment, local artists submitted artwork based on the theme “my community, my neighbours.'' 

In 2015, Google's prototypes joined its Lexus fleet on city streets in Mountain View, CA and Austin, TX. Then, Google employees started testing its own vehicles on city streets, and local artists created artwork for our vehicles as part of Paint the Town.

For Waymo, the company says that ''Our software was fully responsible for all the driving. As a passenger, Steve Mahan became the first person in the world to ride in a fully self-driving car on public roads. For Steve, who is legally blind, this was the first time he was alone in a car in 12 years.''

''Our sensors and software detect and predict the behavior of not only the cyclist, but of all the road users around us. We rely on 2 million miles of real world experience to teach our cars to navigate safely and comfortably through everyday traffic,'' says Waymo.

Waymo's current testing locations

Google has expanded its testing to four different locations over the years. This builds on the 1 billion miles the company has driven in simulation in just 2016. 

In a blog post published in Medium, Waymo CEO John Krafcik said that ''we believe that this technology can begin to reshape some of the ten trillion miles that motor vehicles travel around the world every year, with safer, more efficient and more accessible forms of transport. We can see our technology being useful in personal vehicles, ridesharing, logistics, or solving last mile problems for public transport. In the long term, self-driving technology could be useful in ways the world has yet to imagine, creating many new types of products, jobs, and services.''

''Our first priority is safety in developing self-driving technology. This ride was the culmination of six years of careful development and testing, which at the time included over a million miles of autonomous driving on public roads, three million miles a day of simulated driving, and testing our car’s performance in thousands of unique or rare scenarios on our private test track,'' added Waymo.

First ride with Steve Mahan and Nathaniel Fairfield (Principal Engineer) 1

''To prepare for fully self-driving trips, we put multiple layers of safety preparations in place, including programming the vehicle to slow down and come to a safe stop in the event that it came across a situation it did not recognise.''

Waymo has two types of vehicles on public roads, and it was said that the company is working to add 100 new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to its fleet soon. According to The Information, Google wants to introduce an autonomous taxi service by the end of 2017. Google also owns ride-sharing app Waze.

All images © Waymo 

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