”commit to a new multi-year investment of $5 billion” into Waymo. Waymo has launched their robotaxi in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. The company is also testing its electric vehicles (EV) in Austin, Texas.
Waymo LLC is a company that belongs to Alphabet Inc. and is known as the Google Self-Driving Electric Cars Project. Waymo is an American company run by co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dimitri Dolgov. The company raised $5.5 billion in various outside funding rounds. ”We are grateful for their immense vote of confidence in our team and recognizing the amazing progress we’ve made with our technology, product, and commercialization efforts.”, said Tekedra Mawakana on X (formerly Twitter).
Alphabet's investment is facing fewer potential legal barriers in California. California Sen. Dave Cortese removed Senate Bill 915 from consideration. Senate Bill 915 would have let local authorities restrict and tax self-driving electric vehicle companies.
“This new round of funding will enable Waymo to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous driving company” declared the CFO Ruth Porat. He added that Waymo is an “important example” of long-standing investments for Alphabet.
CEO Sundar Pichai said Wayno gives 50,000 weekly paid trips, especially in San Francisco and Phoenix. In June, the company removed the waitlist and brought Waymo rides to San Francisco. In Los Angeles, the self-driving electric cars company offers rides 24 hours from Santa Monica to Downtown LA. The company plans to scale the area, an identical approach taken in Phoenix and San Francisco. There will be 50 electric vehicles in the LA fleet.
Waymo raised $2.25 billion in its first external funding round in 2020. In 2021, the company raised $2.5 billion in a round that involved funding from Andreessen Horowitz, AutoNation, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and more.
Also, the autonomous EV company issued a recall for their software. The recall involved 672 EV after one autonomously drove into a telephone pole in Phoenix. This recall represents the second one for Waymo company. Waymo filed the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after fixing the software. The update also comes with a new company map so their electric cars can better account for the hard road edge in the alleyway.
The investment of Alphabet in Waymo Company follows General Motors autonomous vehicle unit Cruise, which will delay the production of the Origin. The Origin is a self-driving car intended for use in cities. Also, this week, Tesla announced a delay in unveiling their CyberCab.
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