Waymo expands robotaxi operations to driverless rides on Phoenix freeways

Coming soon to freeways: Waymo robotaxis.

The Alphabet-owned autonomous ride-hailing company announced this week that it will begin putting self-driving cars without human drivers on freeways in Phoenix. Rides initially will be open to Waymo employees for testing; later, the startup plans to expand the service to customers using the Waymo One app.

Waymo already offers driverless rides in Arizona and California, but this latest step marks an expansion beyond the surface roads the vehicles stick to now. The company also has logged “millions of miles” with autonomous vehicles on freeways, but with human drivers present.

In announcing the move, Waymo noted that opening up freeways on its ride hailing service will speed up some trips, such as pickups from the Phoenix airport.

“The ability to utilize freeways will be especially important as we scale our operations to other cities,” the company said in a blog post. “For this reason, we are laser focused on our freeway ride hailing testing.”

Waymo’s latest step forward as it scales up its operations comes amid setbacks for other players in the robotaxi sector, notably competitor Cruise. The General Motors-backed startup last week offered to pony up $75,000 to settle an investigation by state regulators in California into its handling of an October incident in which one of its robotaxis dragged a pedestrian underneath the car after she was struck by another vehicle, Reuters reported.

The months following the pedestrian crash have brought setback after setback for Cruise, including departures of top executives, large staff cuts, a pullback in investment from GM, suspension of the permit it needs to conduct driverless testing in California, and the company’s decision to take its robotaxi fleet out of service for now.

“There’s been a lot of negativity toward autonomy in general,” Mike Ramsey, an auto analyst for research firm Gartner, told Tech Brew. “Waymo was the original leader in this area and they continue to make incremental progress, and even while being leaders, they’ve always been very careful with their expansion. What Waymo is doing is methodically knocking down the barriers to AV introduction.”

Still, don’t expect Waymo or other robotaxis to be widely available across the country for years to come.

“It’s been 15 years [since Waymo started] and they’re just now getting onto the highway,” Ramsey said. “It kind of gives you a sense of how long this process is likely to take before we get to real commercialization.”