Waymo, a company that is part of the Google Alphabet group, started this Wednesday (5) in Phoenix, United States, to offer a paid service of autonomous taxis.
With little fanfare, the company began charging passengers the use of its unmanned vehicles in an area of approximately 100 miles in four Phoenix neighborhoods - Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert - where it has been testing its technology since 2016.
Revenue is a strategic milestone, putting Waymo ahead of US rivals, chiefly General Motors' Cruise Automation, and Uber Technologies, which have not yet launched their own paid standalone services. Everyone is rushing to win over clients and recover billions of dollars invested in technology development.
How it works?
To use the Waymo service, dubbed Waymo One, users must download an application and provide a credit card number, similar to travel-sharing services Uber and Lyft. A human driver will be at the wheel, but only to intervene in an emergency.
Great challenges remain, beginning with technical obstacles. A Waymo One taxi tested by Reuters last week proved slow and unstable at times.
If customers will continue to use the service, when there are more news, it is still unknown. The laws for motor vehicles in the United States are still an incoherent quilt, a significant obstacle to rapid expansion.
Limited service
For now, the Waymo service is limited to "hundreds" of people, with a price equivalent to that practiced by Uber and Lyft. A 15-minute, 4.8-kilometer trip costs $ 7.59, slightly above the $ 7.22 offered by Lyft.
"Over time, we hope to make Waymo One available to even more members of the public," Waymo Chief Executive John Krafcik said on Wednesday. "Autonomous technology is new to many, so we're proceeding carefully."
The company has been testing their cars without a driver for a decade. Its fleet, currently with 600 vehicles, has registered more than 10 million miles on public roads and in about 25 US cities. Alphabet does not reveal its total investment, but industry experts estimate it to be in excess of $ 1 billion.
