Waymo CEO Says Alphabet Unit Plans to Launch Driverless Car Service in Coming Months
November 13 2018 - 2:25PM
Dow Jones News
By Douglas MacMillan and Tim Higgins
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- The head of Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo unit
said it plans to launch its first commercial self-driving car
service in the next two months and expects businesses to be among
its biggest customers.
Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech D.Live conference
on Tuesday, Waymo's John Krafcik said the new service will charge
individual passengers for rides as well as businesses, such as
Walmart Inc., who want to pay to shuttle their customers to stores.
The service will initially be available to a small group of riders
in the Phoenix area, but will expand to more people in the coming
months, he said.
Waymo has said it plans to launch a self-driving ride service in
2018 and earlier this year announced deals to buy thousands of
vehicles in coming years from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Tata
Motors Inc.'s Jaguar Land Rover to expand its fleet.
The tech unit, which began as a self-driving car project under
Google, has spent years and driven millions of miles to develop the
technology. Last year, Waymo began testing its self-driving vans
with nonemployees in Chandler, Ariz., through its so-called Early
Rider program to learn how potential customers might use and
interact with the service.
On Tuesday, Mr. Krafcik said one surprising part of this pilot
has been the number of businesses including Walmart, Avis Budget
Group Inc. and AutoNation Inc. who are willing to pay for their
customers' rides.
"This is a whole other channel of demand we really hadn't
thought deeply about that could end up being a really significant
driver of business," he said.
Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat told analysts last month that Waymo
began testing price models during the third quarter through the
Early Rider program. "We moved into very early days of
commercialization," she said.
Other tech companies and auto makers are rushing to develop
similar technology and deploy robot taxis in a bet that the
technology will reshape the landscape for personal transportation.
General Motors Co.'s Cruise unit is testing a fleet of vehicles in
San Francisco and has said it plans to launch a service somewhere
next year. Meanwhile, federal, state and local regulators are
grappling to oversee the fast-developing technology to ensure
safety. A fatal crash earlier this year involving a test vehicle
operated by Uber Technologies Inc. raised new questions about
whether the technology is ready for deployment.
Mr. Krafcik also highlighted the progress of Waymo's commercial
trucking business, which has begun delivering freight in Atlanta.
In commercial trucking, "you could anticipate a material
contribution to the world from Waymo over the next couple years,"
he said.
Write to Douglas MacMillan at douglas.macmillan@wsj.com and Tim
Higgins at Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 13, 2018 14:10 ET (19:10 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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