Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, is an American autonomous driving technology company. It is headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Waymo operates commercial robotaxi services in Phoenix, Arizona & San Francisco, CA with new services testing in Los Angeles, Austin and Bellevue, Washington, US. In October 2020, it became the first robotaxi service to offer service to the public without safety drivers in the vehicle.
Waymo also develops driving technology for other vehicles, including delivery vans and Class 8 tractor-trailers.
Waymo is run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov. The company raised $5.5 billion in multiple outside funding rounds. Waymo has partnerships with multiple vehicle manufacturers, including Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Lyft, AutoNation, Avis, Intel, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volvo.
History
Ground work
Google's development of self-driving technology began on January 17, 2009, at Google X lab, run by co-founder Sergey Brin. The project was launched at Google by Sebastian Thrun, the former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) and Anthony Levandowski, founder of 510 Systems and Anthony's Robots.
The initial software code and AI design of the effort started before the team worked at Google, when Thrun and 15 engineers, including Dmitri Dolgov, Mike Montemerlo, Hendrik Dahlkamp, Sven Strohband, and David Stavens, built Stanley and Junior, Stanford's entries in the 2005 and 2007 DARPA Challenges. Later, aspects of this technology were used in a digital mapping project for SAIL called VueTool. In 2007, Google acqui-hired the entire VueTool team to help advance Google's Street View technology.
As part of Street View development, 100 Toyota Priuses were outfitted with Topcon digital mapping hardware developed by 510 Systems.
In 2008, the Street View team launched project Ground Truth, to create accurate road maps by extracting data from satellites and street views.
Pribot
In February 2008, a Discovery Channel producer for the documentary series Prototype This! called Levandowski. The producer requested to borrow Levandowski's Ghost Rider, the autonomous two-wheeled motocycle Levandowski's Berkeley team had built for the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge that he had later donated to the Smithsonian. Since the motorcycle was not available, Levandowski offered to retrofit a Toyota Prius as a self-driving pizza delivery car for the show.
As a Google employee, Levandowski asked Larry Page and Thrun whether Google was interested in participating in the show. Both declined, citing liability issues. However, they authorized Levandowski to move forward with the project, as long as it was not associated with Google. Within weeks Levandowski founded Anthony's Robots to do so. He retrofitted the car with light detection and ranging technology (LiDAR), sensors, and cameras. The Stanford team (Stanley (vehicle)) provided its code base to the project. The ensuing episode depicting Pribot delivering pizza across the San Francisco Bay Bridge under police escort aired in December 2008.
The project success led Google to greenlight Google's self-driving car program in January 2009. In 2011, Google acquired 510 Systems, co-founded alongside Pierre-Yves Droz and Andrew Schultz, and Anthony's Robots for an estimated $20 million.. Levandowski's vehicle and hardware, and Stanford's AI technology and software, became the nucleus of the project.
Project Chauffeur
After almost two years of road testing with seven vehicles, the New York Times revealed its existence on October 9, 2010. Google announced its initiative later the same day.
Starting in 2010, lawmakers in various states expressed concerns over how to regulate autonomous vehicles. A related Nevada law went into effect on March 1, 2012. Google had been lobbying for such laws. A modified Prius was licensed by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in May 2012. The car was "driven" by Chris Urmson with Anthony Levandowski in the passenger seat. This was the first US license for a self-driven car.