The Future is Now: self-driving cars aren't Science Fiction anymore

There are lots of smart cars technologies that will improve our time spent driving.

But the feeling is that none of those will be half as important like the tech that brought us the autonomous car.

Because yes, the self-driving cars belong to the present. And not to the future anymore.

Hit the road with Waymo

It’s been 8 years since Google entered the autonomous car market.

All those ideas from the beginning of the project are being now transformed into reality by Waymo, a company described by Alphabet as “a self-driving tech company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to move around“.

a family from Phoenix/ Arizona entered Waymo’s program of testing the autonomous car [source]

“We’ve given 10,000 rides internally, but if you’re just providing experiences to folks inside the company, you’re missing the broader range of diversity” John Krafcik, Waymo’s CEO

After a short period in which Waymo gave members of the public access to its Fiat-Chrysler Pacifica, the time came to the real test: an open application available to members of the pubic living in Phoenix.

For now, the fleet is made of 100 cars but Waymo said there will be another 500 soon.

“We’re not about building better cars; we’re about building better drivers” John Krafcik, Waymo’s CEO

Meet Waymo’s early riders

Waymo’s timeline

2009: The Google self-driving car project began
2012: More than 300,000 miles self-driven
2012: Moved to complex city streets
2015: “Firefly” hit public roads for the first time
2015: World’s first and only fully self-driving ride on public roads
2016: Waymo, a self-driving technology company. The Google self-driving car project became Waymo, a self-driving technology company with a mission to make it easy and safe for people and things to move around
2017: Introduced fully self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans
2017: Launched early rider program. [source]