By Bo Tefu and Joe W. Bowers | California Black Media
Waymo announced Wednesday that its self-driving taxis will begin traveling on freeways in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area, marking a major milestone for autonomous vehicle technology.
Previously restricted to city streets, Waymo said its technology is now ready for higher-speed freeway conditions. “Freeway driving is one of those things that’s very easy to learn but very hard to master when we’re talking about full autonomy without a human driver as a backup, and at scale,” said co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov. “It took time to do it properly.”
Waymo, a spinoff from Google, appears to be the first U.S. company offering fully autonomous freeway rides without human specialists on board. In a 40-minute test ride in Northern California, the vehicle merged on and off ramps, obeyed speed limits, maintained safe distances, and avoided a human driver attempting a dangerous maneuver, the company reported.
Safety remains a key concern. About 18% of traffic fatalities occur on highways and expressways. “In order to predict what’s going to happen 10 seconds from now, the car has to sense what’s happening much farther down the road,” said Wendy Ju, associate professor at Cornell University.
Srikanth Saripalli, director of the Center for Autonomous Vehicles at Texas A&M University, praised Waymo’s record, noting the company has passed over 100 million miles without a human behind the wheel.
Waymo plans a gradual rollout of freeway rides, monitoring performance before full customer availability. “The Waymo driver goes up to the posted speed limit. So, for example, if the speed limit is 65, that’s the maximum speed limit, and it does not exceed it, unless in extraordinary circumstances,” said product manager Jacopo Sannazzaro.
The expansion comes amid increasing competition from Tesla, which has begun offering robotaxi rides in Austin and San Francisco, though its service still includes employees in the vehicle. Other companies, including Amazon’s Zoox and several Chinese tech firms, are also racing to expand autonomous taxi services.
Waymo also announced plans to more than double the number of cities it serves, with new cold-weather locations including Denver and Detroit. It will introduce a new van, the Zeekr RT, supplementing its Jaguar fleet, and will start curbside service at San Jose’s airport, the second major airport for Waymo after Phoenix.
Pablo Abad, Waymo product manager, said, “We do not expect Waymo to make congestion worse on the freeways,” citing no measurable impact in areas where robotaxis already operate.
Waymo’s freeway rollout marks a major step for self-driving cars in California. “This has been a long time in the making,” said co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov. With safety-tested autonomous vehicles now navigating highways, the state is poised to lead in the future of robotaxi transportation.
