Waymo, Alphabet’s robotaxi company, plans to begin testing its self-driving vehicles on Bay Area freeways this week. The driverless cars will be rolled out on the high-speed thoroughfares with company staff in tow as testers.
Sandy Karp, a communications manager with Waymo, told Gizmodo that the company has “been safely and gradually scaling” its operations around freeway travel and that the new rollout would eventually help “Waymo One riders get where they’re going safely and efficiently across our growing service areas.” Karp said: “Taking a highway instead of a surface street in San Francisco” could “significantly enhance a rider’s experience” by making rides shorter. She added that the ability to “utilize freeways will be especially important as we scale our operations to other cities, like Los Angeles and Austin.”
Karp also noted that the company would be “following the same processes outlined by our safety framework, informed by years of safe and proven experience operating fleets of rider-only vehicles on public roads across California and Arizona and millions of miles of experience.” Karp said that the cars would “be adhering to the speed limit (65 MPH).”
California previously granted Waymo permission to test its vehicles on San Francisco freeways back in March. That same month, the company began testing its autonomous vehicles on freeways in Phoenix, Arizona, where the cars have seen even more penetration into the local community. The company claims that the cars can navigate between lanes and even use on-ramps and exits, all without help from a human driver.
If that seems like a recipe for disaster, there haven’t been any disasters—not yet, anyway. But it’s not like the process of automating the rideshare industry has been exactly smooth. Since robotaxis invaded the Bay Area last year, self-driving vehicles have had their share of ups and downs. They’ve been attacked, protested, falsely accused of obstructing an ambulance, and, in the case of one unfortunate car, incinerated by an angry mob. While Waymo’s business seems to be doing fine, its competitor, Cruise, notably suffered from several controversies, eventually pulling all of its cars out of circulation nationwide.
Many kinks are still being worked out. Indeed, this week, one San Francisco resident reported that she’s been hearing the robotaxis honking late at night. She apparently lives next to one of the parking lots where the cars roost for the evening and says that the cars can be heard honking as late as 4 a.m.
When reached for comment by Gizmodo, a representative for the company provided the following statement: “We are aware that in some scenarios our vehicles may briefly honk while navigating our parking lots. We have identified the cause and are in the process of implementing a fix.”
