Last March, Waymo suspended its driverless taxi operations in Arizona due to the pandemic. Now, it has not only started up again, it has opened the service to all members of the public. Previously, it had been available only to about a thousand people who had signed up for and been accepted as “early riders.”
Waymo’s taxis are geofenced, meaning they can only operate in an area that has been carefully and precisely mapped. At the moment, that includes about 50 square miles of Chandler, Mesa, and Tempe, Arizona. Technically, autonomous cars that need maps to work are classed as level 4 vehicles. Level 5 vehicles should be able to drive themselves anywhere without maps.
In response to a tweet about Waymo’s progress, Elon Musk tweeted that level 4 “gives a false sense of victory being close” and that Tesla is aiming for level 5; he claims its “new system is capable of driving in locations we never seen even once.” Continue reading
