Waymo said Wednesday it applied for permission to test self-driving cars in New York City. This is the first step in the Alphabet Company’s stickiness regulation process, bringing Robotaxis to the largest city in the United States.
Waymo has applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation to operate an autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicle with a human safety operator behind the wheels of Manhattan. Human drivers can take over the demonstration or testing permit for autonomous vehicles in New York. A $5 million insurance contract. Additionally, all test vehicle operators must be properly trained in the safe operation of the test vehicle.
New York law specifically prohibits autonomous vehicles. It is worth noting that they will secure a permit, but Waymo will not be able to start commercial operations in the city.
Still, Waymo said it is moving forward and is advocating changes in state law that will allow vehicles with no human behind the wheels to operate. The company is also looking to build goodwill in New York and the state by working with several organizations, including MADD NY, YAI, the National Visual Federation and Bronx Community College.
Waymo told TechCrunch that he has been having positive conversations with lawmakers this year and hopes to continue to advance regulatory changes. New York law says that people driving cars must always have at least one hand (or prosthetic) in the steering mechanism. Changing that language is key to Waymo’s ultimately being able to deploy unmanned vehicles.
Other companies have tried to test it in New York before, such as Mobileye and The Shuttered Cruise. However, these efforts never came to fruition beyond the small number of demonstrations and pilots.
Of course, New York City has other challenges that go beyond regulations. The city is packed with cars, trucks, delivery vans, bikes, buses and, importantly, all of whom have given up. San Francisco is one of the markets operated by Waymo today, and is also a bustling city with many of the same challenges. NYC makes it ten times more complex.
Waymo has been paying attention to the large markets in NYC for many years. In 2021, the company deployed its now-retired Chrysler Pacifica minivan (the first self-driving vehicle in the test fleet) to manually drive and map Manhattan. At the time, the company had two people on each vehicle. One person drove, while the other said it would help direct driver activity, monitor the vehicle’s software in real time, evaluate performance and record comments.
All of these vehicles were equipped with the fifth generation Waymo drivers, the most modern and advanced autonomous system at the time, but they never operated in autonomous mode.
Over the past four years, Waymo has expanded in many other locations. The company offers over 250,000 fully autonomous paid trips weekly in several US markets, including Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco.
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