Imagine if you could automatically learn from the driving experiences of others on the road, absorbing knowledge about all the complicated scenarios they've encountered. The Waymo Driver covers tens of thousands of miles — equivalent to a lifetime of human driving experience — in a matter of days; in simulation, it does so in minutes. But driving is a social and complex task, so it’s not just about accumulating miles, but learning from each one. Our Driver has a unique ability to learn from road events across the entire fleet, advancing its capabilities at incredible speeds. This rapid pace of learning is one of the key factors that has enabled our recent expansion across multiple major U.S. cities. Here’s a glimpse of some technological advancements that have directly contributed to our progress, as well as areas where we continue to accelerate and improve.

At Waymo, we’re developing a generalizable, fully autonomous Driver – the Waymo Driver – designed to integrate with a variety of vehicle platforms and commercial applications including ride-hailing, trucking, local delivery, and personal car ownership. Given the tremendous momentum and substantial commercial opportunity we’re seeing on the ride-hailing front, we’ve made the decision to focus our efforts and investment on ride-hailing. We’re iterating more quickly than ever on our technology by pushing forward state of the art AI/ML, and seeing significant business growth and rider demand in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

Speeding is one of the leading causes of death on the road. In 2020, speeding was a contributing factor in 11,258 deaths and 308,013 injuries, accounting for nearly one-third of all traffic fatalities and 13% of injuries in the U.S., according to the NHTSA. Safety initiatives such as Vision Zero have been instrumental in helping cities design streets, set speed limits, and implement policies to reduce speeding and lessen the likelihood and forcefulness of crashes. The Waymo Driver can help achieve that important goal.

Excitement and caution often go hand-in-hand when a new, transformative technology is introduced. I’ve seen it many times in my career while working on innovative rocket launches, commercial space satellites, and now autonomous driving in my role as Chief Safety Officer at Waymo. Case in point, when it comes to Waymo’s autonomous vehicles, I hear two questions most frequently.

Today, Waymo and Uber are excited to announce a new, multi-year strategic partnership to make the Waymo Driver available to more people via the Uber platform starting in Phoenix.