Waymo plans to extend its autonomous ride-hailing service to five fresh locations in Texas and Florida. Self-driving cars in Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando are scheduled to start transporting passengers beginning in 2024.
The Alphabet subsidiary announced that empty-vehicle operations will kick off in Miami this Tuesday. The remaining locations will see introductions in the weeks ahead. In this preparatory period, the cars will traverse local roads unoccupied, enabling the firm to detect area-specific characteristics and refine its autonomous navigation system.
Waymo indicated that the customization stage demands progressively less effort for each new market. The organization explained that such insights drive a cycle of ongoing refinement, reinforced by extensive real-life testing and cutting-edge virtual modeling, culminating in frequent software deployments. The company maintains that its robotaxis encounter serious injury crashes at a rate 11 times lower than those driven by humans.
Currently, Waymo's self-driving fleet provides passenger service in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Austin. An even broader array of forthcoming markets awaits, encompassing lately revealed plans for San Diego, Detroit, and Las Vegas.