Waymo News Updates

Waymo started offering its robotaxi service in Miami to the public Jan. 22, the first of around a dozen cities where the Alphabet company plans to launch this year.

Drivers for Lyft and Uber protested self-driving Waymo taxis in San Francisco on Jan. 9, urging state regulators to exercise greater oversight of autonomous vehicles.

The power failures, which at one point affected 130,000 customers, closed stores and disrupted transit during the busy holiday shopping period — including many Waymo cars.

Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous driving unit, is in discussions to raise more than $15 billion at a valuation near $100 billion, in a financing round led by its parent company.

The operating software was updated in all vehicles by Nov. 17. The software may cause the vehicle to pass a stopped school bus even when the red lights are flashing and/or stop arm is extended.

A mother was in a Waymo self-driving taxi on her way to the University of California, San Francisco, medical center when she delivered her baby inside the robotaxi, Google parent Alphabet said.

Beginning Nov. 12, the Alphabet unit will begin offering some riders routes that include freeways in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles, Waymo said in a statement.

The autonomous cars wouldn’t be allowed to operate unless a human safety operator is inside the vehicle and able to intervene, according to the proposed ordinance.

Alphabet's Waymo will begin manually testing its autonomous vehicles with human drivers at Newark airport, laying the foundation to eventually ferry passengers to and from the transit hub.

Waymo’s self-driving taxis have been operating in the United States for years, and currently serve the cities of Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Austin.