Google’s Waymo plans to to explore potential expansion into Northeastern cities by beginning mapping and test drives in Philadelphia and New York City. These activities lay the groundwork for a potential robotaxi launch in the future.
TechCrunch reports that Waymo, the autonomous driving technology company owned by Google parent Waymo, has embarked on testing trips to Philadelphia and New York City, signaling its interest in expanding its operations into Northeastern cities.
Waymo’s test trips do not necessarily indicate an imminent commercial launch in these cities. The company has conducted several similar road trips this year, including to Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, and San Antonio. These trips typically involve sending a small fleet of human-driven vehicles equipped with Waymo’s autonomous driving system to map out the new city. The vehicles are then tested autonomously, but still with a human behind the wheel for safety purposes. The data and learnings gathered during these trips are brought back to Waymo’s engineers to improve the performance of their AI driver.
In some cases, these road trips have led to commercial launches. For example, in 2023, Waymo made a road trip to Santa Monica, California. The company now operates a commercial robotaxi service in Los Angeles, covering areas such as Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood.
For the Philadelphia trip, Waymo plans to place vehicles in the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and on freeways. A Waymo spokesperson noted that people will see Waymo vehicles driving “at all hours throughout various Philadelphia neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, University City, and as far east as the Delaware River.”
In New York City, Waymo will manually drive its cars in Manhattan, from just north of Central Park down to The Battery, as well as in parts of Downtown Brooklyn. The company will also map parts of Jersey City and Hoboken in New Jersey. Waymo applied for a permit last month to test its autonomous vehicles in New York City with a human behind the wheel, but has not yet received approval.
This isn’t Waymo’s first time in New York City. The company initially deployed a small fleet of vehicles in late 2021 to map parts of Manhattan and New Jersey. In the winter, Waymo also took a road trip to Buffalo to test self-driving in wintery conditions.
Even if Waymo gets approved to test its vehicles autonomously in New York City with a specialist behind the wheel, the path to commercial deployment will be lengthy. The Big Apple’s current autonomous vehicle regulations do not allow operators to deploy self-driving vehicles with no human in the front seat, a law that Waymo is currently advocating to change.
Waymo’s continued testing across the country is supported by its current commercial robotaxi services in Atlanta, Austin, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The company plans to launch in Miami this year and Washington, DC, in 2026.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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