“ IN THE NEAR TERM , 100 % OF OUR RIDES WILL BE FULLY DRIVERLESS ”
— John Krafcik , CEO , Waymo
THE DISRUPTORS
Tesla Tesla blurs the line between automotive and technology companies , with its products having many of the hallmarks of modern technology such as over-the-air software updates . Tesla has also been one of the greatest beneficiaries of rising stock market prices undaunted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic . One of the company ’ s ambitions is a distributed network of personally owned vehicles sent out to perform taxi work when not in use by their owners . While that is not yet operational , some Tesla vehicles feature “ Smart Summon ” capabilities to reach their owners autonomously .
Waymo Waymo is owned by Google parent company Alphabet , and has a longstanding testing initiative in the city of Phoenix , Arizona , where it has operated self-driving vehicles in a 100 square mile area since 2017 . In late 2018 , the company debuted a ride-hailing service known as Waymo One . Waymo resumed its operations in Phoenix back in May , after disruption caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic , and announced it would start offering rides without human safety drivers in October . In a blog post , CEO John Krafcik said : “ In the near term , 100 % of our rides will be fully driverless . We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular , and we ’ re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand .”
DiDi Chinese firm DiDi has been conducting its own autonomous vehicle trials in the city of Guangzhou . Since its founding in 2012 , the company has raised over $ 21bn , with investment from the likes of SoftBank , Toyota and Apple , who contributed $ 1bn in 2016 . DiDi is best known for having bought out Uber ’ s China business , and has previously announced a partnership with the Renault – Nissan – Mitsubishi Alliance to work on autonomous vehicles . The company has said it plans to have more than one million robotaxis ( self-driving vehicles in public use ) by 2030 , operating in areas where human ride-hailing drivers are less available .
39 aimagazine . com