Waymo
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Donald Trump pardons ex-Waymo, Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski
Anthony Levandowski, an engineer convicted of stealing information about self-driving car tech from Google/Waymo, has been pardoned by Donald Trump.
Waymo will no longer use the term 'self-driving' to describe its tech
The next time Waymo talks about its autonomous vehicle technology, you won’t see the Alphabet subsidiary use the term “self-driving.”
Waymo's COVID-19 safety tightens as it faces another possible shutdown
A Waymo partner has reportedly set out tighter COVID-19 safety rules, and it's not guaranteeing that it can pay quarantined workers in the future.
Waymo shares in-depth details of self-driving car activity in Phoenix
Waymo’s vehicles have driven a total of 6.1 million miles in Phoenix, Arizona, where it first started testing its self-driving technology.
Waymo and Daimler team up to develop self-driving trucks
Waymo and Daimler are partnering to develop self-driving trucks destined for the US.
Waymo offers public rides in driverless cars in Phoenix
Three years after coming to Phoenix, Waymo plans to open its fully autonomous cars to the city’s wider population.
Cavnue is designing a road for autonomous cars in Michigan
The state of Michigan is partnering with an Alphabet subsidiary called Cavnue to potentially build a 40-mile autonomous corridor between Detroit and Ann Arbor.
Ex-Waymo engineer Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison
US District Judge William Alsup has sentenced Anthony Levandowski, the former lead Waymo engineer at the heart of a trade secret legal battle between the Alphabet subsidiary and Uber, to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors sought a 27-month sentence, while Levandowski requested a one-year home confinement, telling the court that his recent bouts with pneumonia makes him susceptible to COVID—19. Alphabet filed a lawsuit against Uber in 2017, accusing the company of colluding with its former employee to steal secrets from Waymo.
Waymo and FCA's expanded deal includes self-driving Ram vans
Waymo and FCA are expanding their arrangement around self-driving tech, and Waymo is going to equip the Ram ProMaster van for autonomously driven deliveries.
Volvo will use Waymo technology to power its self-driving cars
Volvo will use Waymo technology to guide its self-driving cars, including one built for ride-hailing services.
Waymo's self-driving vans will return to Bay Area streets on June 8th
Waymo is putting its self-driving cars back on the road in the San Francisco Bay Area on June 8th, but only for deliveries and not passengers.
Americans don't know why they don't trust self-driving cars
A new survey from PAVE suggests self-driving car companies have a long way to go before they people trust their vehicles.
Waymo suspends all services until at least April 7th
Waymo put most of its services on hold earlier this week, except for fully driverless rides in Phoenix and some testing, to slow the spread of COVID-19. Just a few days later, the Alphabet company has opted to suspend all of its services until April 7th at the very least.
Uber's former self-driving lead pleads guilty to stealing from Google
After about three years of legal wrangling between Uber and Waymo over self-driving car tech, the engineer at the center of it has agreed to plead guilty to one count of stealing materials from Google. Anthony Levandowski was a lead engineer on the self-driving car project that's now known as Waymo, until he left to form his own company, Otto, which Uber then acquired. Reuters reports that the agreement will see all the other criminal charges go away while he admits to taking a file that tracked Google's goals for its self-driving car project. A court already ruled that Levandowski owes Google $179 million for violating his contract, and he has declared bankruptcy. Prosecutors said they will recommend a sentence of fewer than 30 months.
Waymo goes dark except for fully driverless rides
Waymo is joining Uber and Lyft in curtailing its ride services to limit the spread of COVID-19, with a notable exception. The Alphabet-owned company has paused both Waymo One service with human overseers in Phoenix as well as its California self-driving tests in order to protect the "health and safety" of passengers and the community. However, it planned to continue its fully driverless service in Phoenix as well as its UPS delivery services and truck testing, at least "for now." The company believed it could respect local and CDC health guidelines on social isolation with no human drivers involved.
After Math: Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
2020 is shaping up to be the year without conventions. Google I/O, Facebook F8, GDC, OMG, and MWC have already been called off, with exhibitors jumping ship from SXSW by the handful and Computex and E3 likely next on the chopping block. But these are not days for half measures, as this week's headlines illustrate.
Ex-Waymo engineer Levandowski ordered to pay Google $179 million (updated)
A court has ordered Anthony Levandowski to pay Google $179 million to end a contract dispute. He was once one of Google's most prized talents as someone who helped pioneer its work on self-driving vehicles. However, their relationship turned sour after he left the tech giant, which then accused him of poaching talents to start a new company and of stealing trade secrets to start his own firm.
Waymo’s fifth-generation Driver can peek around blind spots
Today, Waymo unveiled its fifth-generation Waymo Driver, the combination of hardware and software that guides its autonomous vehicles. According to the company, the new tech can spot a car door opening a city block away, give trucks the ability to see debris hundreds of meters ahead on the highway, help vehicles "peek" around blind spots and more.
Waymo's first outside investment round includes car industry heavyweights
Believe it or not, Waymo hasn't really leaned on outside help to fulfill its self-driving car ambitions -- Alphabet (and earlier, Google) has shouldered much of the load. Now, however, it's expanding its sources of cash. Waymo has announced its first external investment round, and you might recognize a few of the names contributing a shared $2.25 billion. Car tech giant Magna International and retailer AutoNation are making investments, as are well-established investment groups like Andreessen Horowitz, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Silver Lake and Mubadala.
Waymo doesn't like California's benchmark for self-driving research
Waymo is the latest company to criticize "disengagements," a metric that indicates how often a human driver is forced to take over from a fully-autonomous driving system. At the moment, every company with a self-driving car program in California must report their disengagements to the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). That includes Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, the General Motors-owned Cruise, Aurora and Nuro. The metric wasn't meant to create a public-facing leaderboard. However, industry onlookers have inevitably used disengagements to compare the maturity of these companies and the sophistication of their self-driving software. Why? Because it's rare for startups to give out lots of meaningful data, especially in a way that can be directly compared to their competition. Disengagements aren't perfect, but as the age-old saying goes, something is better than nothing.
