Waymo began two “road trips” to Philadelphia and New York City on Monday, expressing interest in the alphabet-owned company expanding to cities in the northeast.
Waymo’s branded “road trips” do not necessarily represent a commercial launch anytime soon. Waymo has announced several other road trips this year, including Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego and San Antonio. Travel usually involves sending small, human-driven vehicles with Waymo’s autonomous driving system to map new cities. Waymo then autonomously tests the vehicle, but still humans behind the wheels, but they learn back to the engineer to get data and improve the performance of the AI driver.
In some cases, these road trips lead to commercial launches. In 2023, the company made a road trip to Santa Monica, a city in Los Angeles County. The company currently operates commercial services in Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Hollywood.
For its Philadelphia trip, Waymo will place vehicles in the city’s most complex areas, including downtown and the highways, according to a spokesman. She said she saw Waymo vehicles driving “every time, all the time, all the time, all the time, just like the North Central to the University City and the Delaware River.”
In New York, Waymo drives the car manually in Manhattan, just north of Central Park, and is part of downtown Brooklyn with batteries. The company will also map parts of Jersey City and Hoboken in New Jersey.
Waymo applied for permission to test New York City AVS behind the wheels last month. The company has not yet been approved.
This is not the first time the company has at Big Apple. Waymo initially deployed small amounts of vehicles in the second half of 2021, mapping parts of Manhattan and New Jersey. In this past winter, Waymo did a road trip to Buffalo and tested autonomous driving in winter conditions.
Even if Waymo was approved to autonomously test the vehicle in New York with the experts behind the wheels, it would be a long way to commercial deployment. Due to NYC’s AV regulations, operators are currently not allowed to deploy self-driving cars that do not have humans in front seats. Currently, Waymo advocates for changes.
Waymo’s ongoing national testing is fixed by current commercial robotics services offered in Atlanta, Austin, the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Waymo is scheduled to be released in Miami this year and in Washington, DC in 2026.
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