Freeways
Waymo began taking riders with no driver onto freeways across the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix and Los Angeles, at first a growing number of its public riders rather than all of them.
Why it matters
The last setting driverless services had steered around stopped being an exception.
City streets give complexity, a freeway gives speed, and with it a different class of consequence for any error and less time to react. Until then, by NBC News, Waymo had kept its robotaxis on city streets; on freeways, the company writes, its cars had logged millions of miles with its own employees and guests. Access now goes to "a growing number of public riders", and Waymo's help page says access is still limited. The same day the Peninsula service area was extended from San Francisco to San Jose, with curbside service at San Jose's SJC airport. Waymo's post gives no speed: a product manager told NBC the car goes up to the posted limit, giving 65 miles an hour as his example. A Waymo spokesperson told NBC the company appeared to be the first in the United States to carry fare-paying riders on freeways with no human specialist in the car.