Waymo now available to anyone in Los Angeles
Waymo One, the driverless ride-hailing app, is now available to anyone in Los Angeles after previously only offering LA rides to those on a waiting list.
What started out as a secret project at Google has become a robotaxi service available in Phoenix, San Francisco, and now Los Angeles. On Tuesday, the company announced the Waymo One app will be available to an 80-square-mile swath of greater LA — including Santa Monica, Hollywood and parts of South LA around the USC campus, among surrounding areas.
With no one in the driver's seat, Waymo One's vehicles are fully autonomous, with the fleet made up entirely of fully electric Jaguar I-PACEs. Like rideshare apps such as Uber and Lyft, riders can hail a car 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"Now is an exciting time to welcome everyone in Los Angeles along for the ride," Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, said in a statement announcing the expansion into LA. "Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving. We're so grateful to all of our first riders in LA, and we can't wait to serve more riders soon."
Waymo started out in Los Angeles with rides only available to people on a waiting list, which nearly 300,000 people ended up joining, according to the company. Waymo claims those rides resulted in an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars, with LA riders who were surveyed reporting 98% of them are satisfied with the service and 96% saying it was useful.
The company initially launched in San Francisco after getting approval from state regulators last year to charge for rides, after first offering its service in Phoenix beginning in 2020. Waymo rides in the Arizona city are available across a 315-square-mile area.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Transportation, reports fully-autonomous vehicles such as Waymo's robotaxi service can have some safety benefits as these cars may be able to detect threats of crashes humans don't. The agency says these vehicles, like all other automobiles, must be tested by the companies that make them and adhere to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards in place for all U.S. cars.
However, some watchdog agencies and experts have warned of potential dangers. The National Transportation Safety Board issued recommendations for Tesla's Autopilot system in the early years of the launch of the driver-assisted technology. An NTSB investigation into a 2018 Culver City crash found the driver over relied on the system against the manufacturers' warnings.
Meanwhile, the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit organization that manages federally funded research for U.S. government agencies in transportation and defense, released a report in 2021 calling for adjustments in federal safety regulations for fully-autonomous vehicles — saying such changes should be made as the safety approach in their manufacturing and development "matures."
"Regulators have recognized this need in traditional vehicles and have codified it in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, and states require their own levels of driver certifications through licenses and behavioral testing," the report reads.
Last year, General Motors' own robotaxi service, Cruise, had its license revoked by California regulators and had to end its service in San Francisco amid safety concerns, including reports by police and fire officials who said the vehicles were impeding traffic during emergency situations while still in their testing phase, the Associated Press reported.