AUBURN HILLS, Mich.,
July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --
- L4 Waymo Driver to be integrated into FCA's Ram ProMaster
light commercial vehicle for goods movement, enabling the
partnership to address specific needs of commercial
customers
- FCA has selected Waymo as its exclusive, strategic partner
for L4 autonomous technology, with Waymo committing to deploy its
L4 autonomous technology across FCA's full product
portfolio
FCA and Waymo announced today that they have taken the next
significant steps in the expansion of their successful autonomous
driving technology partnership.
Waymo will now work exclusively with FCA as its preferred
partner for the development and testing of class 1-3 light
commercial vehicles for goods movement for commercial delivery
customers, including Waymo Via. The two companies will initially
target integration of the Waymo Driver into the Ram ProMaster van,
a highly configurable platform that will enable access to a broad
range of global commercial customers. This partnership will allow
FCA and Waymo to leverage their respective strengths and
competencies to determine how to effectively use autonomy to
address the specific needs of commercial customers given the rapid
growth of goods delivery services.
FCA also has selected Waymo as its exclusive, strategic partner
for L4 autonomous technology across the FCA fleet and has already
started to work with Waymo to imagine future FCA products for the
movement of people and goods operated by the Waymo
Driver.
"Our now four-year partnership with Waymo continues to break new
ground. By incorporating the Waymo Driver, the world's leading
self-driving technology, into our Pacifica minivans, we became the
only partnership actually deploying fully autonomous technology in
the real world, on public roads. With this next step, deepening our
relationship with the very best technology partner in this space,
we're turning to the needs of our commercial customers by jointly
enabling self-driving for light commercial vehicles, starting with
the Ram ProMaster," said Mike
Manley, Chief Executive Officer, FCA. "Adding Waymo's
commitment to partner with us to deploy its L4 fully autonomous
technology across our entire product portfolio, our partnership is
setting the pace for the safe and sustainable mobility solutions
that will help define the automotive world in the years and decades
to come."
"FCA was our first OEM partner and we've come a long way
together," said John Krafcik, Chief
Executive Officer, Waymo. "The Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans
were the first vehicles in our Waymo One fleet and, guided by the
Waymo Driver, have now safely and reliably driven more fully
autonomous miles than any other vehicle on the planet. Today, we're
expanding our partnership with FCA with the Waymo Driver as the
exclusive L4 autonomy solution for this global automotive company.
Together, we'll introduce the Waymo Driver throughout the FCA brand
portfolio, opening up new frontiers for ride-hailing, commercial
delivery and personal-use vehicles around the world."
FCA became Waymo's first OEM partner in 2016. Since then, the
two companies have worked closely to integrate the Waymo Driver
into FCA vehicles and have made self-driving history in the proven,
capable, L4-ready Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan. This
partnership has led to the first commercial autonomous ride-hailing
service, including the offering of fully driverless service to
riders, as well as driving in dozens of cities across diverse
geographies and challenging weather conditions.
FCA
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) is a global
automaker that designs, engineers, manufactures and sells vehicles
in a portfolio of exciting brands, including Abarth, Alfa Romeo,
Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Jeep®, Lancia, Ram and
Maserati. It also sells parts and services under the Mopar name and
operates in the components and production systems sectors under the
Comau and Teksid brands. FCA employs nearly 200,000 people around
the globe. For more details regarding FCA (NYSE: FCAU/ MTA: FCA),
please visit www.fcagroup.com.
Waymo
Waymo is a self-driving technology company with
a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get
where they're going. Since our start as the Google Self-Driving Car
Project in 2009, Waymo has been focused on building the World's
Most Experienced Driver in hopes of improving the world's access to
mobility while saving thousands of lives now lost to traffic
crashes. Our Waymo Driver powers Waymo One, our autonomous
ride-hailing service, as well as Waymo Via, our trucking and local
delivery service. To date, Waymo has driven over 20 million miles
autonomously on public roads across 25 U.S. cities and conducted
over 15 billion miles of simulation testing. For more:
www.waymo.com
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press
release contains forward-looking statements. These statements are
based on the FCA Group's current expectations and projections about
future events and, by their nature, are subject to inherent risks
and uncertainties. They relate to events and depend on
circumstances that may or may not occur or exist in the future and,
as such, undue reliance should not be placed on them. Actual
results may differ materially from those expressed in such
statements as a result of a variety of factors, including:
volatility and deterioration of capital and financial markets,
including possibility of new Eurozone sovereign debt crisis,
changes in commodity prices, changes in general economic
conditions, economic growth and other changes in business
conditions, weather, floods, earthquakes or other natural
disasters, changes in government regulation, production
difficulties, including capacity and supply constraints, and many
other risks and uncertainties, most of which are outside of the FCA
Group's control.
For more information, please visit the FCA US LLC media site at
http://media.fcanorthamerica.com.
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