Waymo’s Latest Robotaxi Is Here, Ready to Tackle Extreme Weather [CNET]

Smarter sensors will help these self-driving cars better navigate various cities and climates, Waymo says.

Smarter sensors will help these self-driving cars better navigate various cities and climates, Waymo says.

On Monday, Waymo unveiled the 6th generation of its self-driving technology, which is designed to bring more resolution, range and compute power to its autonomous vehicles. Smarter sensors also mean the cars can better navigate in extreme weather including heat, fog, rain and hail, according to the company. The updated tech is still being tested, and will be available to riders in the near future.

The self-driving arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet has been expanding its service in areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Riders can hitch a ride in the Waymo One app, the way they would with another ridehailing service like Uber or Lyft. Specifically, the service is available to all public riders in parts of the San Francisco peninsula and metro Phoenix, and to select members of the public in Los Angeles. Waymo is currently conducting testing in Austin, with the goal of opening up to riders later this year.

Currently, the company says its 5th generation Waymo Driver carries out over 50,000 paid trips each week across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, using the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace. Waymo is also testing autonomous rides on freeways in the Phoenix area, as seen in an exclusive video shared with CNET in May. The 6th generation Waymo Driver arrives aboard an (also all-electric) Zeekr vehicle, which features a flat floor, more head and legroom, adjustable seats and a removable steering wheel and pedals.

See also: Waymo Expands Self-Driving Taxi Service Around San Francisco, Los Angeles

Despite their potential convenience, reception toward these autonomous vehicles hasn’t always been warm. Earlier this year, some of Waymo’s cars were involved in a series of high-profile collisions, including one with a biker in San Francisco and another with a towed pickup truck in Phoenix. (Waymo recalled and updated its software to address the issue.) In response, the company said its autonomous Waymo Driver “was up to 3.5x better in avoiding crashes that cause injuries and 2x better in avoiding police-reported crashes than human drivers in San Francisco and Phoenix.” 

In a blog post about the 6th-generation Waymo Driver, vice president of engineering Satish Jeyachandran doubled down on addressing safety concerns, noting: “With 13 cameras, 4 lidar, 6 radar, and an array of external audio receivers (EARs), our new sensor suite is optimized for greater performance at a significantly reduced cost, without compromising safety. It provides the Waymo Driver with overlapping fields of view, all around the vehicle, up to 500 meters away, day and night, and in a range of weather conditions.”

Waymo says it puts its Driver through a “rigorous regimen of structured tests, real-world driving and simulation” before making the tech available to the general public. Because of data already gathered from previous generations of the Waymo Driver, the company notes fewer testing miles are needed to train and validate this latest iteration — meaning it could hit public roads sooner than ever before. 

“With safety as our guiding principle, our system’s performance in simulation shows promising indications that we are on track to begin operating without a human behind the wheel in about half the time,” Jeyachandran’s blog post notes.

The 6th-generation Waymo Driver is already being tested on public roads, and the company says it’ll share updates on its social platforms throughout the process.