Waymo

Today’s episode of Quick Charge is a story of, “Thanks, Joe Biden!” as Ford and LG ink a deal to bring EV battery manufacturing back to Michigan, the city of Louisville gets the nation’s first all-electric garbage truck fleet, and Waymo gets a massive $5.6 billion cash injection.

Robotaxi developer Waymo has closed an oversubscribed Series C funding round totaling $5.6 billion. Alongside an expanded partnership with Uber, the funds will help the rideshare company expand its Waymo-One robotaxi service throughout current and additional cities in the US.

Wayve, a well-funded London-based autonomous vehicle startup backed by Uber and Softbank, will begin testing its “Tesla-like” self-learning automated driving software in San Francisco and the Bay Area. The move marks its first on-road trials outside of the UK.

Waymo has hired Tesla’s former head of vehicle programs, responsible for product and program Management of all Tesla vehicles, just ahead of Tesla’s Robotaxi unveiling.

It’s probably nothing. Just a playful post on social media from a random Volvo account celebrating an obscure concept car from the early aughts. It couldn’t possibly mean that Volvo is actually going to build the thing … right?

Hyundai’s upgraded 2025 IONIQ 5, hitting the US this fall, will join Waymo’s robotaxi fleet. As part of a new multi-year partnership, Hyundai is preparing to allocate a “significant” amount of IONIQ 5 models for the Waymo One robotaxi fleet.

Waymo is adding to its driverless taxi service areas in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is currently testing in Austin in advance of offering rides to the public soon.

On this, extra-dense episode of Quick Charge, we cover Tesla’s Q2 earnings call, Elon Musk talks cheap Tesla cars and cheaper 4680 batteries while promising to finally deliver on that new Roadster from 2017.

While some self-driving tech companies are dialing back their development or scrapping certain vehicles altogether, Waymo is pushing forward thanks to the financial support of parent company Alphabet Inc. (Google), which just committed to a fresh investment totaling five billion dollars.

Starting today, if you order from Uber Eats in Phoenix, Arizona, your order might get assigned to a driverless Waymo vehicle.

Waymo has announced that it will start offering fully autonomous ride-hailing services to the general public in Los Angeles starting tomorrow, March 14th, and that Austin, Texas will open up “later this year.”

An autonomous Waymo car hit a cyclist in San Francisco yesterday – but luckily the cyclist had only minor injuries. Still, it’s bad news for urban cyclists, and for Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle division, which is already having a tough time shaking off all the bad buzz from the Cruise disaster.

Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving unit Waymo is looking to expand its driverless robotaxi service in Los Angeles, where it is currently testing rides. Although, in light of the fallout from Cruise, it might not be smooth sailing.

Anyone living in San Francisco knows that the city has been a testing ground for hundreds of self-driving cars – and there is probably a good reason why. In light of a series of incidents, including a pedestrian who was seriously injured by a Cruise robotaxi last year, California law enforcement has its hands tied when it comes to issuing moving violations when no human is behind the wheel.

Waymo has released a report saying that its Waymo Driver self-driving vehicles outperform human drivers significantly, leading to much fewer crashes and injuries when compared to benchmark human drivers.

It’s gone from bad to worse for robotaxi company Cruise in the fallout of the October incident involving a pedestrian. The company has now announced it is laying off 900 workers, one day after firing nine executives. Meanwhile, rival company Waymo pulls out ahead with new services.

After over two years of consistent coverage of Geely’s young, all-electric ZEEKR brand, I finally got the opportunity to see its first two EV models up close and take them both for a spin. As a bonus, ZEEKR also had its purpose-built EV designed for Waymo on display ahead of the first deliveries to the robotaxi startup.

Waymo and Uber have rolled out a partnership in Phoenix wherein riders who order an Uber within Waymo’s service area might get picked up by a driverless Waymo vehicle, rather than a human-driven Uber car, starting today.

Waymo’s completely driverless taxi is coming to Los Angeles, and will be open to the public starting this week. We got an advance ride in these self-driving electric cars and a sense of what this level 4 system can do in one of the more chaotic driving situations in a city full of chaotic driving situations: a Santa Monica and Venice Beach weekend.

A select group of protestors in the San Francisco Bay area are demobilizing robotaxi EVs operated by companies like Waymo and Cruise by placing orange construction cones over their sensors. While opposition to this technology has been present in small doses for years, the resistance against autonomous vehicles has recently gotten more press following a recent vote to expand the services in California. Is this a fear of autonomy or just a fear of change in general?

Waymo received final approval to operate its driverless taxis in California last week and will start charging for its driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco starting Monday, August 21.